used forged open razors to shave for decades vs a harsh beard quite successfully that's probably more dexterity than you can boast

Don't have to get saucy. You are the one that said you were not dexterous enough in the video, but apparently you've been grinding your smithing skills@@thesuperiorshave

stropping is, permanently, a mild challenge to perform ideally not like honing and shaving with the razor

Can't knock that YT suggestee algorithm, it knows u better than u know yerself! Didn't know I'd like watching a busy Japanese intersection or British customs agents primarily busting cheap Brits smuggling in untaxed cigarettes (ultra politely) as their fulltime job until it said so...

Hahaha love it. I often do things like that.

Count the razor swipes, 1,2,3.....

surely could do better one now (and in higher resolution), just keep it 'round b/c it is by far the top $-maker for YT advert revenues.

ltcis thanks Itcis.

can't believe these words are coming to my fingers but I'm mildly nostalgic about conventional cigarette smoke now what with them being pushed to the edge of society and the vaporthingies taking over with all the cool kids and all that... also I am against Newport etc.'s brands being told they have to terminate for being too successful at selling to a market, if it is a legal product and they're targeting the legal age buyer that ain't fair to me as a capitalist

Today society has giving smoking a negative connotation, yet the only reason people care about smoking is because it raises the cost of health insurance. Remember when doctors smoked. Remember the movie theaters back in the day with all the smokers. Remember when you actually had a smoking section in a restaurant. Remember when politicians would smoke in the Capital. They smoked behind doors to fight out differences on laws as well as deciding on if our country was going to war.

thanks!

Bet he had skilled hands.

@@thesuperiorshave and you also 👌

what's better than great strop talky-talky...not much

sounds like dad ran a tight ship!

My WWII vet dad ran a tight ship, but it was a 20th century ship. Didn't have to beat us, although my brother had to be put in the brig a couple of times.

thanks!

You are welcome!

well thank u! Wish I could give it more resolution but it is the big earner 'round here. Lookin' a lil long in the tooth for my aging eyes, like a mid-00s pre-HD sports clip.

***** You're welcome, Slasherman, happy stropping down the road may your pitch be ever high.

+Ernie Cuello thanx Ernie

thanx 4 your kind words!

please do in good health

Glad it was helpful happy shaving 2 u!

thanx for watching, Johnny

yer here b/c YT's suggestion algorithm knows u better than u know u!

indeed

indeed, starting off with those who were wise enough to have convex hones taking to task their stones' inheritor who "correctly" flattened them :-)

no shelves seem to be developing on my razors doing it this way 7yrs or thereabout

Thank you.:)

+greenmarine5 thanks greenmarine, may u enjoy enough shaves ahead of u to become greymarine

LOL TY unfortunately I already am Grey ( 47) with 3 daughters, any father knows that causes grey hair. I have 3 straights 1 is an ERN one was bought at a garage sale not sure of the make but it's a very good shaver and the third is a Gold Dollar which is a horrible shaver. Anyhow I got my first strop for Christmas this year before I was using an old leather coat and pulling it taught. I will purchase my next strop by your recommendation (walking horse) from the video since obviously you know what you are doing. Again thank you so far you have the best information on youtube even among the hundreds of stropping videos. It wasn't your practical app but your explanation that helped the most.

thanx greenmarine5...incidentally, Walkin' Horse is no more, as getting USA horsebutt for strops is VERY hard to source. Best bet is to search eBay for 'vintage shell strop', the ones sold to the Japanese market are consistently terrific and usually in great shape (though you'll share interest with other bidders every time)

Thank you for the info Much appreciated.

chipping up a newbie's strop's a rite of passage like your first collision between faucet tap and cutting edge :'l

Off u go, sir, don't buy shit from China or Pakistan and move the razor perpendicular to the cutting edge, never side to side :-) Whatever razor you get, learn to shape your hone this way for the best shave possible; kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bN-mncZ-272zdGQ.html

non-razors should not be kept flush to the leather at the spine, there's various contraptions you can put on the spine to prescribe a bit of crucial and consistent space.

Alright, thanks for the tip

just tryin' 2 matter

thanks

If ever you want to see the effect of a strop, simply prepare a razor perfectly as you can, let it sit 2-3 days, get ready to shave, take a stroke with the razor that rested those days, strop the razor, and try another stroke.

Skills they should teach in high school. Give them.... something useful to focus on.🇺🇸👍🇺🇸 Outstanding info. Greatly appreciated.

Spine and edge are flush to leather at all times, 0 degrees! Sounds help evaluate applied pressure; less is usually better and never more to the edge than to the spine. I, too, cannot get the same sound in both directions, and I blame that on my skill, I do not believe it is anything to do with the Doppler effect; I'm simply better at this in one direction. Similarly, I am MUCH better at the "coming to me" stroke during honing (non-show side bevel upon stone) than I am on the reverse (show-side bevel upon stone), where I have a hard time even going to the full length of the honing plane let alone getting equal pressure quantity as the other stroke, but even though both are not nearly close to perfect, they're sufficient.

Sam Tunio yes, you must eventually hone. But be aware to at least wait until you remember it shaving you better a few days ago before trying to hone; before that moment, very likely that you, the new user, are the limiting factor to shaving comfort, rather than the keenness or lack thereof upon the blade.

he became an emm dee, just get anything horse from Tony Miller heirloomrazorstrop.com that is better workmanship and maybe not 100% equal hides selection but very very good in any case.

this would depend upon the hide and its size, but among common ~3x15" stropping area suede type calfhide strops, 36 laps would be a fine starting point. The last stroke's the most important.

thank you!

it's the YT suggestor algorithm...my new best friend... he/she/it/they's the only one who knows me better than I know myself! If HSITYT tells me I'm gonna like it, mofo's always right. Dude's straight up annoying at parties, when hsit drinks hsit likes to tell evry1 what they like, but for free, just to prove they're always right. That's why I tell my friends to stay off the you tube. Happy New Year!

Much easier to use but always giving up a lot of real estate.

def. a non-essential

Boker very hit or miss. TI used to be the best, I don't feel so anymore; grind much thicker than it was. Still pretty things. Dovo's higher end models are fabulous.

The Superior Shave my Boker king cutter was a hit. It came with HHT positive after 30-40 strops right from unboxing. I've seen people using the same model that couldn't cut a tomato (!!!) right out of the box. So I think I understand your point.

I guess some sense imparted to your ears and fingertips as to the improvement of the edge condition? When they're really good you will detect tactile vibrations and acoustic queues which indicate the edge's bevel plane is being extended at its microscopically-frayed edge best, and in time via stropping on various pieces you'll be able to detect which of these sounds/feelings impart this and which do not.

The Superior Shave thank you so much for responding! So I guess what you're telling me is that you can't tell me, but I just have to learn from experience? I'm using a board while waiting for my strop to arrive, but I don't feel or hear anything. I do notice a loud "ripping paper" sound when I lift the spine off the leather. I just can't get it quite as good as when I bought it from a guy who reconditions them, and even builds from scratch. But I guess that's to be expected from a beginner.

Exactly. I'm sure, given my wordsmithing, with a bit more time to chew on the notion of what it is, I can describe it somewhat. Yes, stropping well takes some time. You should at least be chasing a higher pitched sound for any two attempts at the same speed and stropping medium; this would indicate that the higher-pitched one's touching lighter, and extending the little "fin" of metal shards to the maximum distance from the spine, as opposed to merely bending it back towards the direction above the stropping plane if using too much pressure.

The Superior Shave thanks again. Just to be sure, no matter what pressure, sound, etc...the spine should always be in contact with the strop though, right? Like I should never lift the spine off the leather to change the angle, but use the pressure on the strop with the spine to get the right angle. Just like honing, the spine sets the angle. Is that correct? Or is it ok to lift the spine a little to the desired angle?

Correct; never to touch the edge w/o strop in simultaneous contact with the spine. Spine dictates angle; ideal pressure creates best results within the restriction of the one angle choice.

+bluelinenj thanks for watching, this humble lil' video's good for a McDonald's meal a month because of the kindness of folks like you! :-)

nothing wrong w/ your Herold loom, just less square footage, works the same principles. But strops/stropping do NOT sharpen (= remove) steel, they only realign the broken edge to have all fragments pointing neatly as far from the spine as possible. If your razor's not shaving well after thorough stropping on plain leather, try using a whetstone or a dedicated paste-covered strop (such as Dovo's red and black pastes, chromium oxide, diamond spray, etc.)

Great! thank you! I just bought it actually. "Shave ready" I think was the mention. It did shave very well at the beginning but now it's hurting more than shaving hehe (I'm new to this) Obviously I did make some marks on the loom where exactly I did the X shape sigh. But ok, I guess I put too much pressure also ! Thanks for your answer!

I put very little stock in the term 'Shave Ready' without knowing the vendor assigning their name to the statement and especially the brand of the razor. However, even if the razor truly was ready for a good shave, a straight razor edge is tremendously fragile, and unfortunately can easily be compromised with just a few too-obtuse strokes on poorly-prepped beard with substandard lather and a bad stropping...thus, at this point, no matter who honed the razor, you as the limiting factor cannot be ignored as a possibility.

Ooohhh I see... :( shoot I probably stropped it with too much testosterones lol I guess I will give it a 2-300 shots but no pressure and as flat as possible. Like you say in the video at a certain point. My new blade is a Spartacus from Thiers-Issard 5/8 hollow. Thank you so much for your answers, I mean it!

unfortunately a straight razor will require a strop for daily use, honing and stropping are two different things

surface for daily use should feel smooth and uniform to a blind hand, and in each direction. What you have may be useful for embedded paste strop sharpening, but not for regular daily maintenance.

Thanks for the insite. That makes sense. Much obliged!

@@jordanbeyer7607 "Adequate," "insight..."

@@BRaggles piss off

@@jordanbeyer7607 how rude

Yes, every shave (works best to do BEFORE the shave).

happy to help sir

yes, but it will likely be the opposite side of the dear departed animal (some strops you strop upon the former inside aka the 'split side', others - and most "Illinois" - you strop upon the full/top grain former outside); it may need to be sanded down flat and fine to work well. But def. a possibility for a good stropping plane.

+The Superior Shave thank you sir

Dovo Sunday Shaver

it should be performed just prior to each shave

hi Chuck...the cardinal rule in stropping; that spine ALWAYS must remain flush to leather when edge is also in contact with leather. If ever there's a moment when the edge is touching the leather and the spine is off the leather, you'll have imparted a stropping angle more obtuse than the bevel planes' natural angle as dictated by the spine-to-edge geometry - and almost certainly need a new honing at that point, but perhaps you'll luck out and one hearty stropping session would erase the error.

TheSuperior Shave Thanks for your prompt response. Regards, Chuck

Funny human.

as to when is the stropping enough, I just use a rhythym of 8-count time for my strokes like I'm a background musician keeping time with my strop instrument, and I do 4 8-counts of each linen and leather. I suppose 25+ laps on 3" x 12" of meaningful area would be sufficient. Yes, the 2nd question takes some cooking experience. When it feels less than it was it is time to hone to me. Beginners have trouble differentiating the limiting comfort factor and don't understand it is them not the blade, overwhelmingly likely if sold by a party making their main rep on the sale of European open razors. So IF the vendor has that reputation (as clearly do I), await the shave when u say to yourself "this thing was running better some days ago", that to mean would indicate some experience to discern what they're feeling.

Stropping does NOT sharpen your razor. The reason you practice stropping your razor before or right after a shave is to keep the edge aligned, which is why so many think this is a method to sharpen it. In truth the microscopic edge of your razor becomes nibbled and uneven simply from use. When you strop that removes all the little microscopic jagged burrs a razors edge may get, making it shave much better and closer with less chance of nicking the skin (A straight razors fine edge is actually very delicate, which is what makes a razor so very sharp). Thus is why so many mistake this action for sharpening.

+Kierslee what kind of condition are they in now? any rust or pitting anywhere?

no, not just from the strop your problem is likely that your bevel form has been made a full flush isosceles triangle, via honing only on flat stones... at the factory they would have produced a bevel which was itself concave, and you can reintroduce this concavity to the bevel by progressively shaping your hones reset your bevel with a stone shaped to a 2m diameter (down its length), refine that with a 5m dia. middle grit stone, and finish upon a hard fine stone shaped to 8m, you will greatly reduce overall bevel thickness and also reduce the effective cutting angle maybe you'll still prefer the DE blade experience, but if you never do as I described above, you aren't giving the old blade a fair chance because it isn't being represented as its deceased creators intended

The strop is not made to sharpen. its to tame the bur. stone sharpen the blade

the leather should feel smooth and flat to a blind hand, for this is how the cutting edge shall evaluate

No, these are not kamisori razors. They're regular Western type razors. Kamisoris have some advantages (exotic steels, maximum bevel acuity) and disadvantages (handling is not ambidextrous and honing is atypical), but personally I prefer the Western razor due to being able to master it equally with my left hand.

What's your opinion on Grim Blades aka The Blades Grim?

I'm sorry to report that the examples of this brand which have come to our shop for rehoning have been universally terrible, and I doubt there is a lower quality USA-made modern straight razor...while I'd hope what we've seen was very old attempts, they shouldn't have let their name on them out the door, and the sample size is large enough that I doubt they only represent the earliest productions.

NOT essential in any way

+Tyh Tre very brand dependent, but my professional opinion's that the vast majority of Dovos and NTS-Solingen need nothing more than a hearty stropping. Other brands we carry require more work here in the shop, Golddachs & Boker being very bad about the edges they ship among what we carry.

long gone, sorry. Horween horsebutts and cordovan-tanned shells, but anyone w/ horsebutt or shell hides is a great strop

certainly! Just don't let the razor come to a full stop on the leather if you can, as that's a good way to have it really moving unbeknownst in the wrong direction. I only became a high-speed stropper due the time constraints of a workday, and then it became, for me, better to strop fast than slow, even at home off the clock, due the muscle memories.

The full control of tension, and just more real estate (yes, there are loom paddle strops like Dovo's new one and Herold 57Rri but they're much smaller and $/leather ratio a lot worse).

thank u

yes, some tiny lateral bias is cutting the strops, over time. But I will damage a lot of razors dropping them by trying to 'correctly' roll the tang in the fingertips during the flip-over.

You should not impart anything which cuts steel into your daily use strop. Leather balm isn't much of a need here in ultra humid Florida but in dry climates willbe required eventually.

yer welcome

+Mist3r CJ no, I have for five years now only used coticule (with water) + strop + leather fat

if he has real thick fingertips, this razor; www.thesuperiorshave.com/straight_razors_dovo_bismarck_26810.html if normal size fingertips, any "polished" razor you see here, all shave is same you're just picking wood type(and stainless/regular, get regular unless he can't be bothered to keep his razor bone dry after use); www.thesuperiorshave.com/straight_razors_ntssolingen.html I am partial to snakewood, but look over the pcs, maybe some other wood we have a really nice specimen? this is best first strop to me; www.thesuperiorshave.com/strops_herold155.html Don't buy anything made in Pakistan.

+Justin Billings Trust me, I've been sending out THOUSANDS of str8rzrs stropped on 2" wide strops and without using the 'perfect X'...it does NOT make a "shelf" or anything of the sort. The razor & your face won't know the difference.

Depends a lot on the leather type and how tanned. Not a great idea in a small bathroom but some leathers will be okay w/ it. If you use "split side" type (suede) leathers I would absolutely *NOT* recommend to keep them in the b-room. More humid it gets the leather, more the leather will want to re-assume its old shape when on the dearly departed sacrificial animal.

You pay for quality of life issues mostly, the feedback (touch sense to your fingertips holding the tang and the sounds) and the appearance, but if a blind hand would say that your leather is smooth to the touch and uniform in its feeling, so too will the razor appreciate it. Unfortunately, most of the strops tanned in PK/CN are simply not that smooth and supple. I would say on extremely hollow razors that I feel a horse shell strop makes the first stroke or two of the shave feel extra special, but until I put that to a double blind experiment I shall chalk that up to internal bias.

thank u

No sharpening. It only re-aligns the razor's wafer-thin breaks on its edge to all be pointing in the same direction (the maximum distance from the spine). Officially the Germans believe you should *not* strop after the shave, by the way, as it fatigues the razor and shortens its lifespan (unofficially many think this is like quarreling of the ice water coming off a glacier).

So if it gets dull would i buy a new razor or sharpen the blade like I would a knife? And thank you so much for the help.

You don't buy a new razor, you just resharpen it, which can also be done by stropping by using a specific sharpening-only strop which would have its surface impregnated with any of a variety of extra fine steel-cutting agents.

The Superior Shave okay, thank you so much for all of your help.

yes, more or less - let us describe it as the canvas's job being to prepare the edge to interact with extremely fine/delicate leather.

@@thesuperiorshave How many times should one strope the razor on each side of the leather ?

@@gloomy2830 20 passes on each side should always do the job to realign the edge up after a shave. You can push the keenness a bit with stropping even more but your edge gets fragile over time (like stropping 50 passes on each side after every shave) and wears off quicker so you need to rehone it on a whetstone again. It is basically a trade off where you decide what you like and what is ok for you. I can recommend this site for scientific background scienceofsharp.com/home/

+Chris ram there are a lot of factors involved here, mostly how good the barber is at stretching, prepping the beards, and keeping angle of incidence of blade to skin nice and low with short, repetitive baby strokes...we have a few full time barbers here in Jacksonville that use the real kind and they all have at least 2 pcs (so that one be being sterilized while another in use, you must soak in the solution at least 20 min and must always take a sterilized blade to the strop and then on to client, not to strop again, as there is no way to sterilize the leather), a strop, and a Belgian coticule stone. I have taught them to use water or lather only for their coticules and to touch the stone just a few swipes between each client as the best way to keep any major re-honing away.

www.thesuperiorshave.com/strops.html

no

I try to think of the left/right oscillations a separate event than the up and down, and I just for a long time randomly moving between the two extremities like playing an early 80s paddle video game

It is probably not smooth enough, but evaluate with a blind hand. Pull taut and rub along its surface; does it feel uniform, and most crucially that it feels the same in one direction of hand travel as the other? A good strop leather should be supple, flush to the razor edge, never a hard spot to damage the crucially thin razor edge, and uniform in its sensation in either direction.

not that young to a tortoise

Vintage horse shell strops in ideal condition are to me the greatest strops that were ever made. Good luck finding them, and I will be bidding with you if you do :-) They are so good it is worth trying to buy old beat up pieces with bad pictures for low bid, get some fine sandpapers and saddle soap and vegetable oil, see if you can revive them. From modern production 1) any Horween cordovan shell 2) Dovo "XL" is tremendous calfhide.

Thank you very much for the detailed answer!

www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-Horse-Hide-Barber-Strop-Illinois-Razor-963-Indian-Pony-Shell-Cordovan-/253027483396?hash=item3ae99cff04:g:5GYAAOSwcj5ZVJRo I have one of these exact strops and it is absolutely fantastic(nothing like the modern crap from Illinois), though this one looks like a LOT of work to make perfect again I do believe from those pictures that that piece can successfully be revived via sandpaper, saddle soap, and vegetable oil.

prepare your razor ideally on your hone but do not strop, begin to shave, pause in the middle of the shave (to strop), continue shaving...you now have your answer

certainly, IF that belt's awfully smooth to the touch (= as smooth as a piece of leather/fabric born to the task). A big if, but def. possible.

Another question and thank you for the other answer. Whats a good compound substitute?

Isaac Quinlin I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean by 'compound substitute' here.

It doesn't. It just realigns its micro-serratiions at edge to be in furthest opposition to spine6

@@thesuperiorshave microserration?

the tiny bits at the end where the steel begins to fragment away (every Solingen grinder I've spoken to has said not to try and remove "micro-teeth" as they call them).

@@thesuperiorshave razors are literally serrationless blades. thats how they work. think about the action of shaving with a straight razor. you just go down in a line. that is why you need a "razor" sharp edge since serrations only work with horizontal movement

Literally the managing director of the world's largest remaining razor mfgr can be overheard on one of my videos in their factory speaking of the "critical micro-teeth structure", perhaps he's mistaken.

It depends upon what condition the cutting edge was in. But once properly prepared (the cutting edge), no.

I'd recommend Dovo's models 'Dovo Special', 'Pearlex', 'Diamant', "Gentleman', "Forestal', or 'Carpe Diem' (all same razor just looks/scales varies).

It’s not about the money. I think I have spent a thousand dollars on German and soon French cutthroat razors. By no means if you develop a passion for them.

I would first question the steel/temper, and if you are sure that is fine, think about the angle of approach of your sharpening medium; kzfaq.info/get/bejne/iaiIishymdHTiGQ.html

+Marisol Alvarez You only need one strop, Marisol.

they will not have an angle at the bevel plane which corresponds to holding them flush to the leather, the body of the sword will need to be held off of the leather to some degree (which will vary depending upon the sword's bevel's grind)

@@thesuperiorshave what about a knife? There is a KZfaq video reviewing the Ontario air Force survival knife where I think the man uses a strop. I have the same knife and would love to be even near the edge he put on it in that video. And will plain old leather and cloth work?

You shave with a sword??? 🤔🤦🏼‍♂️

@@seanblanch7986 very damn manly

There's not really a 'burr' on straight razors, but the idea is much the same - there's an end line where the metal becomes thin and frayed if you examine it at a high enough magnification, stropping is taking all of these tiny bits and moving them to be shaped so as to be as far from the spine as possible.

Kind of. You’re doing much more than just removing a small burr. Remember, it’s called a STRAIGHT razor for a reason. Stropping helps to reform the edge and keep it shaving sharp.

before every shave!

I've seen people using a stone. Is that the same thing as doing this?

no, it isn't

+Max Savino I don't know what's on the microscope in regards to stropping, and whether by scientific expression the edge is somehow degraded, but I do believe the "degraded" edge, whether incrementally less keen, has its fragmented metal best ALIGNED to be used for actual SHAVING, and that's what matters. Let us hear from the man of science (to which I subscribe) whom actually says they've tried both stropping their edges and never doing so and find the latter the more comfortable shave, because having done both I know where I sit. The black one is shell horsebutt, tanned by Horween, an old company, in the cordovan tanning process. Might be someone out there still making them but be prepared to pay at least $250 for one.

+TheSuperior Shave The one guy I was referring to is the dude from "the perfect edge" he owns a razor restoration, sharpening store. He also makes some of his own razors and does not strop his own on leather, only uses his 30k shapton. I use a hanging strop as well, I find it FUN, and it brings me edge up right where I want them. I have to agree that, its about the shave not the looks.