Thread: 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.

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

Circular stropping is stropping using a circular pattern

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