Thread: How much???

i have been shaving with a straight for about a year. I normally strop 50-60 passes on a horsehide strop. My question is this enough? Is there added benefit of more passes? How about cloth first then leather? Does stropping make a razor sharper?

A couple of our members (maybe thebigspendur and gssixgun?) have done some experimentation with this topic. I don't recall all the specifics, but my takeaway was that the sweet spot for stropping is somewhere in the 40 to 50 pass range. Less than that and the blade was still improving noticeably, so more passes were justified. Beyond that point you encounter diminishing returns ie: not enough improvement to justify the effort.

If you do an advanced search with thebigspendur as the poster and "experiment" as the keyword you'll find that he came to the conclusion that beyond 60 laps on leather there was no discernible benefit IIRC. I got in the habit of doing 50 linen and 50 leather and have since gone to 40 and 40. I do think linen is beneficial. Here is an interesting thread out of the archives that relates to the topic. Post # 4 in particular influenced me to do the 50 and 50 but the whole thread and the article it links to are well worth the read.

Originally Posted by ShoreBird

Does stropping make a razor sharper?

Bill and Jimmy answered your other questions, so let me try to tackle this one by pointing you to another thread devoted to that question: Does stropping keep the razor sharp? - Straight Razor Place Forums

I think stropping makes the razor feel sharper, but whether it actually is seems to be a matter of debate and definitions

I do take note, depending on the honing, of the improvement available from some linen/canvas products.

I don't think more than 60 is of much benefit. I've noted that a lot of people find improvement througout the first three shaves after honing. As the edge gets smoother and smoother.

I would also question my interest in doing more than 60 passes even if I was convinced of an improvement.

By the way, I typically only do 10 passes.

I'm going to try some passes on my linen strop before the horsehide.

I've heard good feedback from users who took two different tactics. One, the 'always use both" crowd and two the "only when the edge gets too smooth" crowd. The second group of people usually use linen every two weeks or so.

Most of us on the forum say "just use it if you like it".

I would fit closer to the every two week crowd.

Would rough leather serve the same purpose as linen?

Originally Posted by ShoreBird

Would rough leather serve the same purpose as linen?

When I look at the vintage products the most common combination is leather & linen. I think there is a reason for that. Different textures of leather have been available for a long time but linen/canvas won the greatest market share.

Just my $.02,

I found about 60 passes was best. More than that did nothing but exercise your arm.