Mastering the Blades - Why does palm stropping work?

[stubble trouble]

I ran across this terminology in a thread discussing de blades. Can somebody elaborate on what it is, why it's done, etc.?

To paraphrase, the author stated that he gave a new blade a quick palm strop and then loaded it (into it's razor).

 

[ouch]

The "palm stropper" will chime in shortly.

 

[Dharion]

[YOUTUBE]Ogq4wfpT7hc[/YOUTUBE]

Since there is no scientific data available yet the result is up for debate.

 

[KeNd0]

The "palm stropper" will chime in shortly.

oops Dharion beat me to it. Oh well in case you missed it, here it is again.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogq4wfpT7hc[/YOUTUBE]

 

[ouch]

oops Dharion beat me to it. Oh well in case you missed it, here it is again.

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/member.php?u=16394

 

[Dharion]

Now I see.

Kudos to him!

 

[mollzo-dk]

And this seriously increases the lifespan of a DE blade????

- Morten

 

[danielcv]

great info

 

[Luc]

And this seriously increases the lifespan of a DE blade????

- Morten

Try it.

some swear by it, I tried it and honestly did not feel a difference or had a blade that lasted for more than 3-5 shaves.

 

[Peterfazekas]

And this seriously increases the lifespan of a DE blade????

- Morten

I do it to take some of the roughness out of a new blade, that's what i heard it does.

 

[jtadmin]

Try it.

some swear by it, I tried it and honestly did not feel a difference or had a blade that lasted for more than 3-5 shaves.

+1. Now my Father In-Law swore by it when he used to DE shave. In his time you where not considered a mans man unless you stropped it back and forth quickly knocking out the top and bottom of the blade on the corner of your hand, then flipping the blade around and repeating. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK

 

[Tolduonce]

Never met my grandfather, but my mother told me he used to do this before every shave.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaMci7GytOI

The whole clip is interesting, but the demo of palm stropping starts around the 1:40 time stamp. He did this with a W&B 6/8. I have his razor now. I didn't inherit his "guts" by the way.

 

[ProphetNoir]

It's possible that any felt effects are placebo ... but I still do it anyway. Shaving is my own little Japanese Tea Ceremony. I enjoy the entire ritual from filling my hotpot with water for the scuttle to breaking down my kit and palm stropping the blade before putting everything away.

 

[infotech]

Never met my grandfather, but my mother told me he used to do this before every shave.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaMci7GytOI

The whole clip is interesting, but the demo of palm stropping starts around the 1:40 time stamp. He did this with a W&B 6/8. I have his razor now. I didn't inherit his "guts" by the way.

Whooa! My hand would be laying on the floor in a pool of blood. I'm going to have to try and use a bit more pressure on my strop. It looks like he was using quite a bit more than I do, or imagine people using when I read about it.

 

[bmathe02]

I haven't tried it yet because I just became aware of the technique and am in mid blade (I leave my blade in my razor). Does anyone do it and are the results negligible? In theory it does not seem to take much time if any... granted you don't slice something. But will it just dull the blade quicker. Im not sure of the tolerances of blades if they come back perfect and don't require any tooling.

Thanks

 

[Eric V]

I just did a search of "blade palm stropping" on B and B, and came up with quite a few threads that address this issue. Some members have had great success in hand stropping their DE blades. I haven't tried it, and think you might not get a lot of responses on this Forum.

Let us know how it turns out!

 

[bmathe02]

I for got about the search feature. Im gonna go and read up now.

 

[smalltank]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogq4wfpT7hc

here is the how to

 

[DaveNJ74]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogq4wfpT7hc

here is the how to

Thanks for the vid, it was good up until the Fusion reared its head.

 

[baba]

From what I have learned over the years, the main reason blades go dull is because of the gunk, dirt, and particles (microscopic and otherwise) that form on the blade and dull or rough up its edge.

That is the reason that stropping works so well to keep the edge sharp...stopping basically clears away debris, from the blades edge and keeps it clean and keen.

It makes no difference when you strop, and I don't do it everyday, but I can tell you it does make a huge difference in length of time I can use a blade, and comfort of a shave.

My routine is this; after my shower I make my lather and apply it to my face, then I take out my razor, pop out the blade and strop the blade on the palm of my hand for about thirty seconds on each side of each edge. Stropping while the lather is on my face allows the lather, heat and moisture to work on and soften my beard.

So you kill two birds with one stone, stropping your blade, while letting the lather work its magic on your face.