Stropping Mid Shave

[stone and strop]

I also palm strop Alan immediately prior to using the leather to make sure the blade is clean from lint or errant debrit.
When I am done shaving the blade is well wiped and dried. I have little fear of there being any soap remaining.

 

[Lord Fatboy]

I also palm strop Alan immediately prior to using the leather to make sure the blade is clean from lint or errant debrit.
When I am done shaving the blade is well wiped and dried. I have little fear of there being any soap remaining.

+1 - I see a build-up of steel on my strops, but never a build-up of soap & hair...

 

[Twelvefret]

+1 - I see a build-up of steel on my strops, but never a build-up of soap & hair...

I'd highly expect is to be present.

 

[Alum of Potash]

I also palm strop Alan immediately prior to using the leather to make sure the blade is clean from lint or errant debrit.
When I am done shaving the blade is well wiped and dried. I have little fear of there being any soap remaining.

I should add that after shaving and before stropping, I also wipe the blade on a bar towel to remove standing soap scum. But this I consider as a preliminary to stropping. I have noticed that after wiping, some small areas of the bevel/edge are dulled over, indicative of a soapy film. It is only after stropping on leather that these areas return to being fully polished. Beyond this, once the blade has dried off completely, I dip it in a solution of 4 pts. alcohol to 1 pt. mineral oil, which further dissolves any soap scum.

 

[Scarry Knight]

I strop during my shave, as I am also doing my head. More area. It helps, yes.

 

[Luecke2326]

I have only ever given a touch up on a pasted strop mid shave. I've never regularly stropped mid shave.

 

[Lord Fatboy]

I strop during my shave, as I am also doing my head. More area. It helps, yes.

How long does an edge hold when you're head shaving? How many shaves before it's not effective?

 

[Lord Fatboy]

I'd highly expect is to be present.

Not really, and I've looked under the scope regularly. After shaving, I palm strop & pull the razor through a sponge / felt block, which is very effective. If I only had one-razor-one-strop then, sure, maybe there would be a build up of soap, hair & skin.

 

[Scarry Knight]

How long does an edge hold when you're head shaving? How many shaves before it's not effective?

I’ve only had to reset a bevel on one that I dinged against the sink edge and another I splashed iodine on. Aside from a new GD. I strop 40 laps before and after a shave and rotate razors often so it is hard to judge how long before needing touched up. Assuming you mean going to a stone again. If you just mean stropping, I probably go about four or five shaves on a razor and then will use the rouged (I need to get a finer polish bar) side of my linen to polish it a little before stropping on the outside linen and leather. Not that they get to a not effective state, but just to improve the edge. Does that help?

 

[Lord Fatboy]

I’ve only had to reset a bevel on one that I dinged against the sink edge and another I splashed iodine on. Aside from a new GD. I strop 40 laps before and after a shave and rotate razors often so it is hard to judge how long before needing touched up. Assuming you mean going to a stone again. If you just mean stropping, I probably go about four or five shaves on a razor and then will use the rouged (I need to get a finer polish bar) side of my linen to polish it a little before stropping on the outside linen and leather. Not that they get to a not effective state, but just to improve the edge. Does that help?

Cool. Thanks.

 

[Twelvefret]

Not really, and I've looked under the scope regularly. After shaving, I palm strop & pull the razor through a sponge / felt block, which is very effective. If I only had one-razor-one-strop then, sure, maybe there would be a build up of soap, hair & skin.

Okay, I suppose if you don't see any there is absolutely no debris present. I've read that honing has more than one purpose including to dry the blade. I assume cleaning the blade from human matter and soap would be a part of that process.

 

[stone and strop]

I should add that after shaving and before stropping, I also wipe the blade on a bar towel to remove standing soap scum. But this I consider as a preliminary to stropping. I have noticed that after wiping, some small areas of the bevel/edge are dulled over, indicative of a soapy film. It is only after stropping on leather that these areas return to being fully polished. Beyond this, once the blade has dried off completely, I dip it in a solution of 4 pts. alcohol to 1 pt. mineral oil, which further dissolves any soap scum.

As we all do things differently I can see why you have some remaining residue.
I rinse under warm water first then temperate water while wiping the blade between fingers. My fingers churp on the clean blade all the way along. I am quite certain there is nothing remaining before drying on tissue. then storing.
When I palm strop prior to stropping it is to remove the lint from the tissue used prior.
I have heard of some saying they strop on linen or even leather right after shaving to dry and clean the blade as Twelvefret has said but this is a modern thing mentioned on forums and the like, not something that was done by professionals at any point in time as far as I know. I have never seen mention of it professionally.
Personally I would not want to put a blade to either linen or leather unless it was clean anyway but that's just me.
Again, its funny to me how some think they are so far ahead of our predecessors when it comes to this stuff. We, who only shave ourselves vs a professional tradesperson who shaved people for a living.
We are not advanced learning anything, we are rediscovering what was learned long ago.

 

[Scarry Knight]

I want to mention here.....dont wipe the blade sideways. Wipe to clean from spine to edge. Sideways you are likely to make things worse. In the least you can impart scratches when doing this while there is swarf or slurry on a blade. In stropping you are risking dulling the edge some. I see way too many video tutorials on honing where swarf is wiped off directly after a hone without first rinsing a blade and they are wiped sideways as opposed to spine to edge.

 

[Clay S]

Yes I have read the entire blog as well.
Its hard to argue with the photos presented though. All of them show stria to the edge and they are always less visible with the flat shot photos.
The edge on is where you see everything else. I believe he is refereeing to teeth as perceived because of this description later.

"The scratch pattern does not correlate with the presence of “teeth.” The edge non-linearity is not correlated with stria on the bevel face."

The non linearity is what we are calling teeth what he is saying is that not ALL the stria will create the teeth as the larger ones become the dominating factor. We do not need to call it teeth, you can call it what you want. The term given is for association.
Again pictures do not lie.
The deformation that is corrected through stropping is also evidence of its purpose.

The strops purpose has long been known.

+1 I was trying to figure out a way to say this. Mine was "the photos show teeth"

 

[stone and strop]

I was going to add today in a final bid,
If we do not use the word teeth and we do not try to understand what the author meant with his interpretation but we only look at the first photo.
Pictures are worth a thousand words.
You can interpret the photo for yourself, but, you are seeing what I am seeing. If you interpret it differently, the photo does not change.
So you must decide for yourself.

 

[EL Alamein]

So, I think you may have misinterpreted my post. The author seems to disagree with you. He mentions a few times in that post about there being no "teeth". I just didn't want you to worry that I felt alone on that. I got my notion from him and also from the earlier Verhoeven study.

You should know he still answers posts to his blog. You should probably go over there and let him know his pictures plainly show teeth and that the purpose of stropping is not debatable. It might be a nice exchange of ideas. He's got a few ideas on stropping.

He has a very interesting post about what stropping does. Number one on his list is realignment of the edge but his example has to do with a blade he received from a custom razor maker and he knows not how the misalignment happened. But that post is not about teeth getting bent out of shape from shaving and needing to be realigned.

He likes the keening factor and cleaning factor of stropping and the coating from leather it provides to the edge. You should probably straighten him out about that (no pun intended, of course). Let him know that barbers of old had this all figured out and didn't need the help of an SEM to do so. So much for modern technology in helping us understand what's going on.

I mean, you cited the guy, so since you two seemingly have a difference of opinion on the data he presents so you should exchange ideas and come to an understanding. I think it might help us all. Enlighten him is all I am saying.

Chris

 

[Twelvefret]

So, I think you may have misinterpreted my post. The author seems to disagree with you. He mentions a few times in that post about there being no "teeth". I just didn't want you to worry that I felt alone on that. I got my notion from him and also from the earlier Verhoeven study.

You should know he still answers posts to his blog. You should probably go over there and let him know his pictures plainly show teeth and that the purpose of stropping is not debatable. It might be a nice exchange of ideas. He's got a few ideas on stropping.

He has a very interesting post about what stropping does. Number one on his list is realignment of the edge but his example has to do with a blade he received from a custom razor maker and he knows not how the misalignment happened. But that post is not about teeth getting bent out of shape from shaving and needing to be realigned.

He likes the keening factor and cleaning factor of stropping and the coating from leather it provides to the edge. You should probably straighten him out about that (no pun intended, of course). Let him know that barbers of old had this all figured out and didn't need the help of an SEM to do so. So much for modern technology in helping us understand what's going on.

I mean, you cited the guy, so since you two seemingly have a difference of opinion on the data he presents so you should exchange ideas and come to an understanding. I think it might help us all. Enlighten him is all I am saying.

Chris

I went back and read the blog on honing and stropping a SR. He confirms the cleaning and straightening process I felt existed when stropping. Thank you.

 

[stone and strop]

I wasn't worried!

Number one on his list is realignment of the edge but his example has to do with a blade he received from a custom razor maker and he knows not how the misalignment happened. But that post is not about teeth getting bent out of shape from shaving and needing to be realigned.

We just can't get away from the teeth.
It is not the teeth that get deformed it is the edge in general.
The smoothing of the teeth is for the freshly honed edge, after that, the stropping is to realign the edge from damage.
This is what I wrote to begin with.

The stropping after the initial honing is to realign the damage caused from shaving

And the freshly honed edge not having irregularity from honing (teeth) before ever seeing a strop is not going to change in my mind and obviously not going to change in yours. You cannot argue with the photo. It has not been stropped yet.
After many stroppings the edge will become smoother (less teeth) and smoother along with more edge damage from shaving that cannot be repaired from stropping. This is when we re-hone.

This is what you wrote in post #2
The old barber's manual recommends the barber strop after the first pass and before the second pass. It works.

I think it works because it removes any debris from the bevel and thus allows for more slickness on the sides of the bevel. Modern razors do this with a teflon type coating(s). That allows the blade to pass through the hair easier. No buildup on the blade, you see.

Just a theory of mine and it could be entirely wrong so take it with a grain of salt.

So my two cents for what it's worth. Whatever the reason it does seem to work.




You made no mention of edge repair but solely cleaning the edge, later, talking about keening the edge a bit, and now edge repair.

So here we are,
Sounds like we are not so far apart after all.

 

[steveclarkus]

I'll not be trying it. I don't want to get shaving debris all over my strop, neither do I want to do a second clean down of the blade mid shave to avoid it. If the blade can't even make it through one shave, there's something fundamentally wrong - and I'd rather address that instead.

+1

 

[DrStrange]

The old barber's manual recommends the barber strop after the first pass and before the second pass.

It is not obvious to me how
after the first pass,
is different from
before the second pass.