Purpose of Stropping

Bakunin17

Bakunin17

New member
Over the years I've read many ideas about the purpose of stropping with a hanging strop and really none are very clear about the purpose. The purpose of the strop is to maintain the keenness of the razor between shaves.

The purpose of the Linen component of a strop is to SHARPEN the razor's edge, the linen is an abrasive, and 50 passes of the razor will sharpen the razor edge back to the point before use.

The purpose of the Leather component is to smooth and therefore refine the razors edge made " toothy" or minutely jagged by sharpening.

So help me get my head around the purpose of using a hanging strop . lol
 
C

cladium

Member
because when hanging even if we pull down hard, it is still going to be a gentle concave like the razor edge in a hammock
this ensures our stropping makes good contact to the edge and gives the edge micro-convexity for durability
stropping is supposed to take those tiny teeth or breaks and bring them far away from the spine
 
Bogie

Bogie

I'm not looking at you !
Without scientific backup, I'm thinking the purpose of the strop is to remove to minor oxidation on the edge that occurs between uses. I never did understand the purpose of the linen strop. Any ideas on this? I've never used a linen strop and my razors shave pretty good.
 
Bakunin17

Bakunin17

New member
Bogie

I can't honestly think the ONLY purpose of the leather is to remove minor oxidation though I've read it forms on the razors edge as soon as the razor is not in use. For example, in knife sharpening they say the purpose of stropping is to remove microscopic inconsistencies in the edge from sharpening the knife. Could it be that stropping a straight does the same thing?

Real linen sharpens the razor because it is abrasive. The order which you do stropping between shaves suggests the linen sharpens and the leather smooths the edge from the linen stropping. That way you really bring the edge back to shaving sharpness which is the point of stropping a razor between shaves. One hone meister said the strop regimen is 50 linen to 25 leather . When I have done this, I can feel the razor is actually sharper. But I could be way off. lol
 
Bogie

Bogie

I'm not looking at you !
I have twenty plus razors in the drawer. The next time one starts to drag a bit, I'll give the linen strop a go and see if it makes a difference. Although with that many in rotation, it might be a while before I get back to you on this one! Until that happens, I'll go with your take on it.
 
drmoss_ca

drmoss_ca

Is there a Doctor in the house ?
I use the linen after shaving, mostly to ensure the edge is dry, and leather before shaving. I don't think much sharpening goes on, more aligning any deviations in the blade edge caused by the shave. Dovo used to sell a very mild abrasive white paste (chalk in tallow) to use on linen and I did try it out. Did not make any difference I could feel.
 
Bakunin17

Bakunin17

New member
" I don't think much sharpening goes on, more aligning any deviations in the blade edge caused by the shave."

Aligning, to place in a straight line. When the razor edge hits the shaft of hair small microscopic dents or divots are put into the edge. What the knife sharpeners call " inconsistencies" and you call deviations. The abrasive nature of the linen, its hardness and stiffness grinds the blade edge, sharpening the edge. The linen on my Illinois 827 strop for example is hard and very stiff and has gotten gray from use. So I do think at some level metal is being removed from the edge and the blade is sharpened. The leather smooths the rough edge, polishing that jagged sharpness from the strops abrasiveness.

For example I honed a razor, the edge was very crisp and very sharp, a few cuts and irritation resulted. Before the next shave I wanted to tame the edge, smooth it out so instead of going to linen I went straight to a fast leather to smooth it out.
 
Bakunin17

Bakunin17

New member
Science of Sharp seems to say what I am saying if I understand the write up correctly. Linen abrades or sharpens, removes metal particles . Alignment can only happen with the removal of metal by the linen.

Burnishing or polishing is just using leather to smooth the edge. So, I still get linen to sharpen, leather to smooth.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top