Thread: Stropping is King

[quote=PuFFaH;74349]

I still believe that this forum has nurtured the honing side of SR shaving to the detriment of correct stropping technique. One cannot live without the other but both play at least an equal part in the final outcome.

That's what I thought, but there are some here who do only honing, at least when traveling. There's a recent thread about it (or part of a thread). In other words, they get down to a very fine hone or pasted strop and touch up when needed. My only comment was it wears out your razor unnecessarily.

There's no right or wrong here. It works for these guys. Just like stropping alone works for others.

Do you all think that this favour is granted to hones because the act of honing is many faceted but clear to understand. Or is it stropping has too many variables in its practice that can effect the outcome, that people just dont understand that this could be where they might be going wrong when they get razor burn.

No, I think stropping is so deceptively simple tha it just doesn't receive enough attention. On the other hand there are some that use only strops (pasted strops included). At the same time, it's amazing how often a newbie will mess up his razor on the strop before he ever uses a hone.

An adequate honing job on a razor can still be made to shave excellently if properly stropped. On the other foot, an excellent hone job can be made useless by poor stropping technique. 50/50 don't you agree?

No. You could also be a superb stropper and never get your edge to the point of being able to use it because of poor honing technique. I think each of us eventually develops an approach that works for them. The typical approach is to use both.

But apparently, once your razor is shave ready you can keep it that way with a hone only or (a slightly abrasive) strop only.

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

In my opinion its not heat, but "stickiness". Just like pulling a rope faster to get more force you get more "stropping" force by pulling quicker against the leathers "catch".

The stickiness or draw is just friction. It's all inseparable. Frictional resistance is related to the force you apply. Friction produces heat. If you strop faster, the heat builds up faster.

It's quite possible that Scott's technique depends on the generation of more abrasion (friction), as I mention above.

Here is what I did last night. I took a razor on its last legs, about the 6th shave and it was pulling. So I stropped it only. I used lots of pressure on linen 20 strokes, then lots of pressure on leather 20 strokes. I strop very very fast btw. I did a total of 60 passes probably. Then I did this series twice and test shaved. . .

the shave was poor, very poor, but then;

I did a series of ten strokes on leather with lighter and lighter pressure until I returned to my usual light stroke on leather. So 10 lighter, then another 10 lighter still, etc. About another 30 strokes total. And sure enough the razor is again shaving like it did day one off the hone.

So based on this I'm up for a little experimenting . . .

I will hypothisize that we hone and use light stropping strokes to maintain the edge, when that fails we hone or perhaps could use aggressive stropping to create an edge that is again realigned (regardless of sharpness).

I'll try some stuff out and post!

Originally Posted by Joe Lerch

The stickiness or draw is just friction. It's all inseparable. Frictional resistance is related to the force you apply. Friction produces heat. If you strop faster, the heat builds up faster.

It's quite possible that Scott's technique depends on the generation of more abrasion (friction), as I mention above.

Yes, but if you strop like crazy with enormous pressure and speed the blade doesn't even get warm. So friction I can buy, heat is another matter. I suppose you could believe the tempurature of the edge is rising and effecting the steel, but I'm saying that Im inclined to not believe that heat is the catalyst.

It's only the cutting fin we're talking about here, it's very thin so it wouldn't take much friction to heat it up (because there's just not much mass there). OTOH, it's attached to a giant heat sink, so if the fin heats up it cools back down to ambient by the time you've finished flipping the blade.

I'm sceptical that heat has anything to do with it -- I suspect that speed and pressure are partially fungible -- either way the fin is hitting the leather hard.

One possible explanation for what some members are observing is that the bevel itself isn't stable over time. We tend to think of the business end as being "bevel" + "fin", but really there is a continuum between those two. The boundary area between fin and bevel may be warping over multiple shaves, and light pressure on the strop isn't enough to bring it back to sharp.

Or it's possible that unpasted strops are more abrasive than we've been giving them credit for.

HandAmerican advertise leathers with high silica content. I am not sure whether that is a natural or an artificial "ingredient" of leather. That might account for the abrasive qualities of some leathers.

Silica is also considered to be the abrasive agent of the linen strop:

"And he mentioned something about the superior abrasive quality of linen over cotton in the manufacture of canvas strops. This may help clarify the intended purpose of using the linen when stropping."

The latter quote I took from the first post of the thread Illinois Razor Strop Company started by Scott (Honedright).

That's interesting about the silica content - my edges have been lasting noticeably longer since I switched to the hand american strop.

This is a great thread. I'm particularly interested in what Alan finds out with his experimentation.

I've been doing some more experimenting of my own. (My hair and my wife's hair works great for the HHT, so I have a pretty good benchmark to go against.)

This morning I tested my razor before stropping. It broke hairs, but didn't cut them cleanly. After 30 laps on the linen, it was back to popping hairs. I'm amazed at how well the linen works; Kees mentioned an abrasive in the linen, and I wouldn't be surprised. I used to think it was just cloth.

About 50 strokes with medium-easing-to-light pressure on the leather put an even finer edge on the razor. Cut cleanly through hanging hairs--wow. I'm on my third shave since the pasted strops and there's no noticeable dropoff in sharpness.

I'm wondering if my edge isn't a little weak. I only go up to .5 microns on my pasted strop, but I have a coarse beard. I'm still working on my shaving technique, so I'm not sure what to expect.

Keep the interesting info coming,
Josh

I'm starting a new thread "Testing the limits of a strop"

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

Here is what I did last night. I took a razor on its last legs, about the 6th shave and it was pulling. So I stropped it only. I used lots of pressure on linen 20 strokes, then lots of pressure on leather 20 strokes. I strop very very fast btw. I did a total of 60 passes probably. Then I did this series twice and test shaved. . .

the shave was poor, very poor, but then;

I did a series of ten strokes on leather with lighter and lighter pressure until I returned to my usual light stroke on leather. So 10 lighter, then another 10 lighter still, etc. About another 30 strokes total. And sure enough the razor is again shaving like it did day one off the hone.

So based on this I'm up for a little experimenting . . .

I will hypothisize that we hone and use light stropping strokes to maintain the edge, when that fails we hone or perhaps could use aggressive stropping to create an edge that is again realigned (regardless of sharpness).

I'll try some stuff out and post!

I can't explain this other than this was a case where you need to realign the fin and your normal stropping did it. Heavy stropping might have just moved the fin too far (back and forth), giving you nothing.