I just bought a barbers strop on Ebay thinking that it would come with instructions, but it didn't. I was told that you guys would be the best to ask about how to use this thing. I have been told about three or four different things, but am wondering about the best. Thanks for your help.
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Barbers strop?
- Thread starter Nate2
- Start date
This place would be your best bet for information like that
http://www.classicshaving.com/Home.html
There is also a yahoo group devoted to straight razors/shaving/stropping etc.
http://www.classicshaving.com/Home.html
There is also a yahoo group devoted to straight razors/shaving/stropping etc.
- Joined
- Apr 27, 1999
- Messages
- 6,117
There are a couple links on this Shavecenter page to razor maintenance and use. Just look around a bit. PS. If you are stropping a knife rather than a razor you might want to use a more aggresive compound on your strop like green chromium oxide buffing compound. http://www.shavecenter.com/
mycroftt said:Hey - just a doggone minute! Bladeforums has a discussion forum called Razors, Scissors, Trimmers & Personal Grooming Accessories. Maybe it should be taken over there for discussion.
True, probably a lot of good stuff in the archives, but it doesn't seem to get nearly as much traffic as some of the other forums.
Hey Nate,
I'm assuming you're going to use it to strop a straight razor with, right? And for stropping the razor before a shave. There different types of barber strops, but here are the basics for a plain leather hanging strop.
Use the slick side of the strop. You shouldn't use any kind of abrasive paste on it. Attach the loop to something (I have a cup hook attached to a cabinet in the bathroom) and pull the strop tight. You should use very little pressure; the weight of the razor itself should be sufficient. Lay the blade flat on the strop so both the spine and edge are touching it. The stropping motion should be with the spine of the razor leading, edge following.
When turning the razor over for the return trip, turn it over on the spine, NOT the edge of the blade. You shouldn't even have to lift it from the strop. Don't use those old cowboy movies as your guide on how to do it. That's just Hollywood showmanship and I've never seen them do it correctly.
The speed at which you strop is not that important. Better to keep a light touch and turn the razor over correctly than to try to run the razor across the strop quickly. With a properly sharpened str8 razor, needing only stropping, I usually do 20 to 25 round trips on the strop (a round trip being up & back).
Parry
I'm assuming you're going to use it to strop a straight razor with, right? And for stropping the razor before a shave. There different types of barber strops, but here are the basics for a plain leather hanging strop.
Use the slick side of the strop. You shouldn't use any kind of abrasive paste on it. Attach the loop to something (I have a cup hook attached to a cabinet in the bathroom) and pull the strop tight. You should use very little pressure; the weight of the razor itself should be sufficient. Lay the blade flat on the strop so both the spine and edge are touching it. The stropping motion should be with the spine of the razor leading, edge following.
When turning the razor over for the return trip, turn it over on the spine, NOT the edge of the blade. You shouldn't even have to lift it from the strop. Don't use those old cowboy movies as your guide on how to do it.
That's just Hollywood showmanship and I've never seen them do it correctly.The speed at which you strop is not that important. Better to keep a light touch and turn the razor over correctly than to try to run the razor across the strop quickly. With a properly sharpened str8 razor, needing only stropping, I usually do 20 to 25 round trips on the strop (a round trip being up & back).
Parry
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2000
- Messages
- 2,116
yuzuha said:
Unfortunately it didn't take off as well as some of us would have hoped. It seems whenever something got going people from the Straight Razor Group on Yahoo would come in and spam their links in all the different discussions. I am a member there and it's a great resource, but it's a horrible interface and a pain to keep up with discussions. It's a shame they don't all come over and spend more time on the BF Shaving forum and get some good discussions going. The Yahoo Group will always be a great resource for the things they have archeived there in their databases, etc, but I don't care for the format for using it as a forum.
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2000
- Messages
- 2,116
yuzuha said:
Yup. If you post something there it's a real pain to track comments and what not. I don't know why Yahoo doesn't just set their groups up to have regular forums.
I have a 4000x and 8000x artificial Japanese water stones for honing my straight razors. I got them from Lee Valley. It sounds like the guys over on the Yahoo Group like Norton 4000x / 8000x 3" wide combo stones.