Thread: Switching Hands(while Stropping:)

As I get better at stropping, there is definitely a difference in the feel of the strop when going away from you vs towards, which probably has to do with grain direction of the leather. Does anyone find value in switching hands to make the stropping in effect more even? One thing I have noticed is stropping lefty makes me revisit the techniques that righty does so mindlessly.

Kingfish,

I use paddle strops almost exclusively, and I do turn the paddle around half way through the stropping for the very reason you mention.

With a paddle such reversal is most convenient. For those hangers with 'D' rings at both ends, the same would be true. For 'normal' hangers, it is a bit of a problem

Most of the leathers I have show only slight 'pile effect', but one quite suedey leather does show a marked difference.

Have fun !

Best regards

Russ

Personally I've always thought the different feel going up or down on a strop was due to you and the way you do your strokes up and down. After you have a strop and it's well used it develops a patina or polish to it and I think any grain differences would tend to equalize out.

I give my strop a good rubbing with my hand before each use in both directions and I find that it feels the same in each direction when I strop.

Plus it increases the draw, which I like!

Thanks for your precious time used to reply,

Originally Posted by PhatMan

Kingfish,

I use paddle strops almost exclusively, and I do turn the paddle around half way through the stropping for the very reason you mention.

With a paddle such reversal is most convenient. For those hangers with 'D' rings at both ends, the same would be true. For 'normal' hangers, it is a bit of a problem

Most of the leathers I have show only slight 'pile effect', but one quite suedey leather does show a marked difference.

Have fun !

Best regards

Russ

Yes Russ, I have noticed only "slight" differences in all of my homemade latigo strops and a much more noticeable one in my two Russian Shell comercial ones(an Illinois and and old Romo that I don't use anymore).

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Personally I've always thought the different feel going up or down on a strop was due to you and the way you do your strokes up and down. After you have a strop and it's well used it develops a patina or polish to it and I think any grain differences would tend to equalize out.

The strops I am currently using are relatively new, maybe that is why it sounds and feels more noticeable to me now. I tried this on a very slick worn in strop with almost no feedback and it indeed was much harder to tell the difference.

Originally Posted by Stubear

I give my strop a good rubbing with my hand before each use in both directions and I find that it feels the same in each direction when I strop.

Plus it increases the draw, which I like!

I do this to, I ruined my first strops by applying too much dressing and now only give them the old hand rub and they seem to improve the more I use them.

It might be that this idea was one of those points of diminishing returns based on the lack of response by seroius stroppers, but in my mind it still makes sense in terms of strop wear and whatever small effect it may or may not have, after all most of us do this with our hones that are concerned with even hone wear.
Even after a couple of weeks of doing this, my left hand speed is considerably slower than my right, and the only small nicks in my strops are still the result of bad timeing from my right hand. I hope that if nothing else, my slower left hand can reteach my sometimes off timed right hand to flip the razor in better time to avoid anymore small nicks.

Fanatically Yours,
Michael