Razor stropping

This article is meant to help to understand what happens during stropping and how different aspects affecting to the stropping result. The stropping is an necessary and important part of straight shaving. Every time the edge and bevel touch your face you can feel the result of your stropping and it is not the same how you have done it. I am no one important. All the tributes belongs to those who have helped this fine arts to stay alive. My will is to pass on the knowledge that I have been collecting and learning by doing.

Stropping is straightforward though and not terribly difficult; anyone who can shave with a straight razor should be able to properly strop their own razors. Good stropping will help keep a razor shave ready longer before it needs to be resharpened on a hone. There are different kinds of strops and pastes that can be applied to strops for the purposes of helping keep a razor sharper longer. If you find that your razor dulls after just a few shaves, you may want to examine your stropping technique as a good strop should keep a good razor sharp for many shaves. You may also want to examine your strop and make sure it is in usable condition. Strops need to be properly maintained in order to achieve optimum results.

Everything mentioned in this text is not set in stone. We are human beings and our needs, habits, personal interests and many other things are so individual that you can thrust your learning abilities and see what forks best for you.

Why proper stropping is essential

Jack La Lanne has a saying, "Exercise is king, nutrition is queen, put them together and you have a kingdom!" Along the same lines "stropping is king, honing is queen." Good honing and good stropping are both absolutely necessary for a good straight razor shave, but even a perfectly honed razor by the best expert will not make up for poor stropping technique.

Ergonomics

There are two basements where to start. The first one is strop and seizing and the second is yourself and the way how you handle strop and razor.

If these basements are stable you can start to build your stropping technique much easier and just to focus in the important part of action.

Your muscle memory storages your learnings and believe me it's much harder to learn out the wrong technique that doing it right. My other interest lies on the martial art section where this memory thing appears so clearly. There is also a saying the one needs a 1000 repeats to learn and 10000 repeats to learn it away.

Seizing point

Be sure that your strop is properly seized to the stable non moving point. The stable point is not a door handle, arm of the chair, back rest of the chair etc (unless you have bolted or anchored it but I dare to doubt about it). You have to pull the strop and if it moves all the time in each stroke you can be sure that the result is not best.

One exception for this is travelling where you must use paddle strop or things mentioned above. With paddle strops I think it's wise to steady the paddle at first and after learning hold it in the air during stropping if you like.

Seizing height

Try to get the strop to the level which is most comfortable for your hands and body. You should not get any tensioning by holding the strop or during action. You can do stropping much easier and focus again only for your proper technique if you feel relaxed.

Surroundings

Find a peaceful place to do your stropping. You have a sharp edge in your hands and there is no point to set others in danger. While you're familiar with sharp edges many people scared them. You can't either relax if kids and/or pets run around you at the same time.

Basic strop handling

How to hold the strop

Most strops have a leather handle or d-ring where do you get a good and secure grip. If it's just a plain straight leather grab it deep inside in to your palm and hold firmly. Do not squeeze it too hard and if your knuckles turn into white it might be time to release a little bit.

How to hold the razor

Open the handle totally as it's easier to roll the razor around this way. Take the tang between your thumb and forefinger. Find a best point to hold razor with flipping it side by side. If you have a bad and uncomfortable grip it slows your stropping speed and you must correct it all the time.

Tighten the strop

Pull it until it is a taut. It doesn't have to be overly taut but I think it avoids further problems if you keep the strop in line. Watch out that the strop does not lean too much in any side.

Watch out your wrist angles and see how your hands move during stropping to prevent unnecessary leaning.

Loading the blade pressure

Neither too much nor not too little. That is as precise a description as you will get.

Tensioning the strop and loading the pressure goes hand by hand and I think that these parts are the things what you learn absolutely by doing and testing. Then again doing and testing... and then again doing.....I think you get the point. I suggest that you start with the comfortable and firm tension and very light blade pressure. It is a nature to load too much pressure instead of too less one. This appears especially with full hollow blades which are more flexible than near wedges.

Tip leading

With narrow strop is easier ( for me) to strop the way where tip leads and with motion of X pattern. It might be also a must to get the whole blade stropped properly. Tip leading keeps the blade better against the strop due to reversed forces of left and right hand.

Tip leading

Stropping problems

Improper stropping can cause a properly sharpened razor to feel duller and / or rougher than it should during the shave. Issues resulting from poor stropping include the following:

• Uneven feel across the razor's edge - caused by the razor not making good, even contact with the strop throughout the stropping stroke
• A rolled edge - caused by bending the razor's edge against the strop with such force that the strop begins to bend the fine edge of the razor away from the blade
• An increasingly dull, harsh edge - caused by the razor not making enough good contact with the strop (eg. very slow stropping, stropping too infrequently or too few times across the strop)

Simply returning to good stropping is often enough to correct these issues. However if damage caused by poor stropping is severe enough, the razor will have to be repaired and/or resharpened.

Uneven feel

Uneven edge

Razor is not making a good, even contact with the strop through the stropping stroke.

Some parts of blade is stropped and others is not.

First reason for this is that your strop hand might lean the strop too much to the left or right side during stropping motion.

Second reason is that your blade hand might lean too much instead of first reason.

Rolled edge

Rolled edge

Bending the razor's edge against the strop with such force that the strop begins to bend the fine edge of the razor away from the blade.

First you might load too much pressure on to your blade.

Second one is that you might roll the edge by it's axle during stropping motion

Timing and contact problems

Razor is not making enough good contact with the strop.

First reason for that might be that too slow stropping motion. You can start with slow motion to get the feeling but after that you must add the speed. Not anyway like in a speed contest. Check out the good videos.

Secondly you might do a stropping too infrequently. If you start with low speed increase the speed steadily to keep the feeling. You can't neither drive your car only with an idle and full throttle.

Third option might be that you don't do enough stropping. Check out section 5 to avoid this.

Common mistakes

Sloppy rolling/flipping 

When concentrating on your stroke up and down the strop, you might lose your technique, especially when flipping the razor at the end of each stroke. You may actually end up fumbling around by manually changing your grip on the razor at the end of each stroke, thereby affecting the consistency of your speed and blade angle. Whether your roll, or flip, the razor with your thumb or wrist, as long as it supports a smooth, and consistent stroke. Doing it correctly might actually feel a bit unnatural at first, but it is essential. We recommend that you practice the flip with the razor in mid-air, and move to a practice strop. You will most likely cut your strop while learning, unless you have way better hand/eye coordination than most beginners. We recommend that you learn on a cheap strop, and watch some member stropping videos.

Excessive slowness 

Excessive slowness in the stroke is considered even more counter-productive than too much pressure. For most, a light stroke is much easier to learn than a solid, confident, quick stroke. Many beginners stroked lightly and incorrectly for months, because they were too slow and inconsistent. You do not have to strop in a blur to be effective, but as a general rule, 40 - 60 light strokes per minute gets you much farther and sharper than 10 - 30 strokes per minute.

Using your senses

Hearing

Same time when stropping collect all information what you can get to learn faster and reach better results. You can hear different voices. Here are two samples to get the idea

Uneven sound Uneven contact, you don't want to hear this

Proper sound Proper contact, this is real music to your ears.

Seeing

Watch your strop and blade during stropping and find out if they lean too much.

Feeling

The strop and blade gives you a lot of feedback during stropping. If you're not tensioning too much you can better get these feelings how the stropping goes.

Other things to mention

• Different steels can vary your stropping times and strokes a lot. Harder ones needs naturally more to go than softer ones. The best thing is to strop and test/shave.
• Different blade widths gives you a different feelings.
• Grounds is in there too. Near wedge is stiffer than full hollow which pops up the rolled edge quite easily.
• Latigo strop gives more feedback and draw than smoother horse hide.
• As this is not enough there are also pasted strops and newspaper stropping.

Here are many things to take care of but don't be scared. It isn't hard. Be patient and do not rush yourself too much. There is still so much to learn.

Have fun & enjoy

Stropping demonstration videos

SRP member Seraphim demonstrates the sights and sounds of good stropping. They are the result of much practice.	Instructional straight razor stropping video

External Links

• SRP Forums: Stropping is King
• SRP Forums: Seraphim's stropping video thread
• SRP Forums: Common stropping mistakes

Acknowledgements

Originally created by TonyJ on 22:37, 23 December 2008 (UTC). He would like to point special thanks to Robin who inspired him to write this.