Thread: Pressure on the Strop...

Alright, so I'm fairly new at this whole straight razor thing (loving it, by the way), so, expectedly, my stropping technique is hit or miss. More hit than miss, I think, because the flesh on my face is still present. That being said, the other day I was stropping my blades, in my zen-place, and I realized that I was torquing my wrist and putting a fair amount of pressure on the edge, especially when pulling toward me....and I have no idea whether or not I'm supposed to be doing that. I dug through the SRP wiki, but couldn't find any explicit description (I could've missed it....)
Now, to clarify, I'm very careful to ensure the spine is firmly attached to the leather; I'm not digging in, gouging, or otherwise cutting the leather with the edge; and I rotate the blade on the spine when switching directions. I'm just wondering if I'm supposed to be simply letting the edge just touch the leather, continue putting pressure on the edge, or somewhere in between.
My blade is a 5/8 full hollow, and I bring this up because I'm approaching two weeks and, while the blade still cuts beautifully, I can definitely feel a difference between now and the is-the-razor-even-on-my-face? feeling of a fresh hone. Also, I have a 6/8 full hollow that is decidedly unshavable after only about a month, but it was an....unwise....purchase anyway. I expected nothing less from it; however, I wish to rule out the human factor (me) before completely condemning it. Oh, and I dearly hope this post makes sense.

V/R
Jim

Basically you need enough pressure to keep the blade on the strop (both spine and edge) and no more.

The closest thing I can think of is about as much pressure as you'd use spreading butter on bread, enough to get the job done without smushing the bread

Jim,
I think that stropping is one of the easier things to learn, but the hardest to master due to the amount of variables. I found a stropping video by Lynn Abrams where the strop looks slightly loose, after I tried this technique it helped me immensely. I think I may have been holding the strop too tightly and this caused me to put too much pressure on the blade. Food for thought...hope this helps.
Joe

Interesting. I often catch myself pressing down too much and I admit that I'm very conscious about pulling that strop as tight as I possibly can. I wonder if my pulling hard on the strop is subconsciously making my other hand press down too hard.

Well you're ahead of my learning curve anyhow. Anyhow, yeah...just very light pressure. I'd say less pressure than spreading butter on bread myself. But I keep my butter in the fridge..which makes it a considerably different task to accomplish.

yep - I was doing that for sure... I relaxed this morning and found my stropping far less stressful

Well there's pressure and there's pressure IMO. Because of how you hold the razor (or maybe how I hold the razor) when stropping it is possible to have a pressure differential between the spine and the edge. For example, I can apply pressure on the tang in such a way that the spine is quite heavy on the strop but the edge is not.

I'm not sure how useful this is in terms of practical stropping, I'm just saying. And of course thickness of the strop comes into play as well. Because I strop with kangaroo, which is thin, I can and often do take advantage of the pressure differential because my strop is amenable to it - I can "dig" that spine into the leather and allow the trailing edge to just tag along lightly behind because my strop is thin enough to allow that amount of deflection within the width of the blade - other thicker leathers may not have that flexibility, I imagine.

I guess what I am saying is that if people were to watch me strop they may conclude that I am a "heavy pressure" stropper due to the perceived deflection in my strop. However, nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to what is happening between the edge and the leather.

James.

I really like the bread and butter anology.
While learning to strop, I too used too much pressure pulling the strop taught and also too much pressure on the blade.
Its all a part of training yourself to learn just how much and where the pressure is needed to get the job done.
Keep just enough pressure on the edge and the spine to keep them in constant, and hopefully even, contact with the strop until the flip comes into play.

Light, equal pressure.

the way I explain it is

Press the blade to the strop with as much pressure as you would press the blade against your face, and I suppose for strop tension "pull as hard as you would to get your socks up out of your shoe"