Thread: Strop tension: loose or taut?

Hi,

During the sharpening course, the instructor told us that the leather on our paddle strops should be loose. i.e. no tension.
Lynn's shaving movie also shows Lynn stropping on a loose hanging strop (if I interpreted correctly what he was doing.

But there are other posts on this forum with people saying the strop should be stretched taut.

could anyone provide some insight?

P.S. form another thread I understood that thebigspendur has created a large document on stropping technique. where can I find that?

You should stretch it but not so you bend the hanging hook. Just enough to keep it flat. The strop does bow a bit, but not too much.

I agree with Ilija. I keep my strop about as tight as I can get it. It' impossible to get it completely flat, though, so there's a happy medium.

The videos you'll see kind of exaggerate the bowing, since they're shot from the side. My strop bows about 1/4 of an inch at most.

Josh

Without a doubt Taut. I keep mine as taut as possible when stropping.

I have a beefy eye-bolt lagged into a stud in my bathroom and what I do is find a good place to stand and then lean back to keep the strop taut. Mind you, it's not like I'm putting a lot of weight into it. Just enough to keep it nice and taut. It makes it easier on the arm holding the strop and lets me concentrate on the stropping motions.

I have an eye bolt screwed into the thick particle board that makes up the bathroom counter and fastened with a washer and a nut on the back end. It won't pull out or bend, so I pull fairly hard on my strop. My left arm muscles are just a bit tired afterward.

Josh