Testing the limits of a Strop

I am, effectively trying to test the limits of a strop to extend honing.

I started with a stainless 5/8 Dovo Pearlex razor on its 7th shave. I normally would have honed it up. I did some aggressive pressure stropping and then lightened up the pressure and discovered the razor was new feeling again.

This post will describe the second shave (or 8th depending on your point of view) This thread will describe my attempts to learn a method of stropping which will prolong the time between honings.

Ok, so I decided for this shave to do some better prep and added hot water from the stove to heat up my shaving bowl and to use hot towels.

I assumed, having aligned the razor really well yesterday that todays stropping should be light and easy.

I took to my shave . . . bad, bad assumption. OUCH

That was a painful start. I went back to aggressive stropping and then lightened the touch like yesterday and got a pretty decent shave started. It is a little harder on the skin than the first one. But the edge was way feathered out and I could tell it wasn't aligned at all. The more aggressive stropping was doing a better job.

Mid-shave, on the second pass I decided to restrop, again using pressure and speed. This time, just for grins, I finished on linen instead. This seemed to produce a much nicer edge. On the linen I did a circular stropping pattern. Don't know why, just what seemed like the right thing to do. Edge felt nicer.

The razor felt like it was a little duller but shaved pretty well and felt smoother so it was kinda neat. My face isn't really that comfy with the shave though.

I feel very comfortable saying I'm not near the correct process to keep the razor shaving for a long time, still more experimenting will need to be done.

I think I'll give this method a few more shots and then try something a little different. I'm wondering about wearing the edge out with heavy stropping and if perhaps I need to find an excessively effective technique that doesn't wear out the edge.

More to think about . . .

perhaps very, very high speed and very limited pressure, or just enough pressure. That would make some sense for alignment.

I'm left with a very close shave that feels like it was a little rough on my tender sensitive skin.....ohhhh experiments. :-(

What strop are you using and what exactly do you mean by circular stropping on the linen?

X

X,

This is what I use:

http://www.classicshaving.com/catalo...944/196032.htm

Circular stropping is stropping using a circular pattern

9th shave . . . still working and still shaving . . . ok. Nothing great, just ok. It doesn't feel as sharp and nice as a new edge but technically its still shaving. Feels smooth though. I'm afraid its a slippery slope of acceptance though. The edge gets duller and duller and I just accept it.

Again, moderate pressure leading to light pressure kept the edge . . . ok.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AFDavis11

Circular stropping is stropping using a circular pattern

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show us an animation or video clip please?

Oh boy . . . an animation huh? Pixar studios I'm not. How is it you guys can picture honing and stropping in an X pattern but can't picture circular?


I really don't think it has anything to do with the effectiveness. Its just much easier to do really, really fast than an x pattern.

I tried a diagram but it got screwed up by the autoformat function.

Alan,

Do you mean doing an arching stroke in one direction, then flipping and doing an arching stroke in the other direction?

I think X is visualizing the same pattern as circular honing, which would mean you were pushing the razor edge first over the strop at some point.

Josh

Circular, or half X pattern is how I strop also. You go up the strop diagonally, flip the blade, and go down the same path you came up...

Nenad

I think you need to work with two identical razors. Here's why.

Dovo says that the fin will realign itself most of the way within 48 hours, so you need to use the blade on alternate days. The alternate would be to do mid-shave stropping so you put away the razor reasonably aligned. If the razor is misaligned at the end of the shave and you use it the next day stropping will not be as effective, and if you strop hard enoug to force the teeth back, you stress them, causing some of them to break off (in time) from metal fatigue. At that point you'll need to hone to get the edge back.

So, the most issue free way to do this would be to use the two razors alternately. That way, stropping will only have to push back the teeth over a small range, and lighter stropping should do it. Also, warming up the edge on linnen will make the teeth more flexible, easing the stropping.

Another consideration is if the blade feels reasonably sharp at thend of the shave, you could try light stropping on the linnen to clean the edge, squeeze out moisture, and remove microscopic oxidation that may have started to form. If the edge is not sharp at the end of the shave, you'll have to do mid-shave stropping to do the post shave stroppping.

I'm making all these suggestions because they focus the experiment on the effect of stropping and remove other contributing causes.

Very good point Joe,

I'll stop for now, as I do not possess two similar razors and based on another thread want to try a carbon blade instead. I'll use that every other shave and continue searching for the undescribable techniques that might increase honing increments.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Joe Lerch

Dovo says that the fin will realign itself most of the way within 48 hours

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Dovo also says it's razors are shave ready <g>

Other than that Joe I am right with you on this. My day job is in metallurgical testing, mechanical, spectroscopic, radiographic, etc..... First reactions and gut feelings are often right on the money but often they are not once further testing is done.

AF may be right but I'd like to see more.

Tony

Right about what?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AFDavis11

Very good point Joe,

I'll stop for now, as I do not possess two similar razors and based on another thread want to try a carbon blade instead. I'll use that every other shave and continue searching for the undescribable techniques that might increase honing increments.

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I didn't want to throw a monkey wrench into what you're doing. In other threads we find that the Dovo warnning applies if the razor produces a deteriorated shave at the end of the shave (significant misalignment). If it doesn't, you don't have significant misalignment, and you coul probably use the razor again the next day.

What got me wondering about this is that a barber is able to work with a razor all day, though many shaves. My thinking is that he's able to do that by preventing the razor from becoming misaligned. In other words if he feels something happening he'll even strop mid-shave. So, if you strop often enough to prevent significant misalignment you should be able to use a razor every day.

I suppose Dovo wouldn't want you to know that or they might sell fewer razors.