Thread: Strop tension: loose or taut?

Originally Posted by izlat

I *really* need to revive this!

PuFF is a stropmeister. I am not even close, but would like to learn.

The quote I inserted - first too sentences are clear. The bold text though - not so much.

Namely, for hollows (lesser weight) I do use less pressure indeed but I find I want to / need to keep the strop much tighter than I can get away with for a wedge. I do the opposite of less tension - because it just feels right for the hollows.

I am interested to hear more on this



Cheers
Ivo

Ivo
With a wedge I can use a lot of weight when stropping so a taught strop is needed, with a full hollow I will not use a lot of weight when I strop it, so I can lessen the tension on the strop to compensate. In effect I gain the same arc/bow in the strop with both razors but working from both ends of the scale. I am not a lover of over weighting the full hollows when stropping but rather letting the feel sound draw tell me how heavy to go. With a wedge I think you can be heavier in stropping and use a heavy draw strop and still get a great edge. This is not to say that a light weight and less tension on a wedge will not work either. I favour low to medium draw for strops and tend to use the low draw for hollows and high draw for wedges. I always lessen the pressure towards the final few stokes on the strop whilst shortening the distance travelled over the strop so that I finish on very short light pressure medium tension.

I hope that resolves my statement for you Ivo.

Puff
I

Originally Posted by izlat

Tony - thank you for the extensive post.

I didn't know PuFF is such a radical and I do respect his knowledge and experience - this is why I decided to revive the thread.

Yes, I also try to see how things come together in my mind and go by feel. I guess my feel and instinct coincides with yours but not with PuFF's. The thing is, we all know how elusive and plain wrong feel may be (as numerous psycho-physio -etc. experiments have proven) so I am just trying to learn as much as I can

Cheers
Ivo

I am starting to get the idea that I am "against the grain" on a lot of I think also Ivo To be honest I am hard pressed to put words on paper about how I achieve things and this lets me down some what.
The term FORUM allows free exchange of ideas and experiance. Big thumbs up for this forum imo, as such no remark will be taken as an insult but used by me to re-evaluate my technique and theory.

Cheers Ivo and Tony

PuFF

Puff,
That sound exactly like what I do. Heavier draw and pressure/tension on heavy razors, lighter draw and pressure/tension on light razors. I start heavier and finish light.

Tony

Originally Posted by Tony Miller

Puff,
That sound exactly like what I do. Heavier draw and pressure/tension on heavy razors, lighter draw and pressure/tension on light razors. I start heavier and finish light.

Tony

Yipeee!!!

So I'm not strange Tony I will post soon on the Thuringen experiment, Not bad news so far

PuFF

Sounds to me like you know exactly what your talking about!

PuFF - thank you very much for the details!

Yes, I also start heavier and then gradualy lighten and shorten the stroke - going by feel and sound. I also like more pressure and draw on the wedges.

However, I *may* use more slack / allow more bow in the strop with a wedge. This helps me get more draw from the strop at the edge, I think. For hollows - I also like lighter pressure / less draw like you BUT with my strop, I feel I have to pull it tighter than I do with wedges in order to achieve lesser drag.

I guess our major difference is that I allow more strop bow with wedges than I do with hollows. I will try your approach to see if I get better results

Thanks again
Ivo