Thread: Scary Stropping

So here is a video of my barber Mr. Lee stropping his razor. It looks funny to me but his shaves are smooth and comfortable

YouTube - Mr. Lee

Looks crazy, but if it works, it works.

You can certainly see that he has a good technique when he is flipping the razor, but slapping it on the strop seems a little unusual. Cool video!

Thank you for the interesting video! The flourishes Mr. Lee so skillfully demonstrates reminds me of the way barbers were portrayed in old western movies. Perhaps those movies weren't so far off the mark as we thought!

Cheers,
Jeff

I think that is part of the "show" slappity slap! Kind of like a wrestler leaping from the top rope!

That's the way they all did it in the old days. Nothing unusual about that at all.

But when they slap they are not slapping the end of the blade it's the spine and upper parts of the razor.

+1 on what TBS said. You can see he never pushes the edge into the strop, and there is no excessive deflection when he "slaps" the razor down. I wouldn't be comfortable stropping like that cause it's not a skill I posses (or desire to posses), but there's nothing inherently wrong with it.

I remember as a kid, when the barber would pull out the straight razor to touch up my neck, he would slap the razor around on the strop.

I guess year after year of repetitive motion builds the ability to take a bit of license..
I go slow and steady!

Wow that's some skills! It's like playing a super hard fast god-like guitar solo behind your back. Isn't it ? I'm just saying ..

I've used those slappy motions. They are fun and can produce nice edges. He has some great skill there.

I'm pretty sure if I did that, I'd have at least 2 short strops!