Hand/Palm Stropping of SE, DE and Carts

Ooh, ooh, ooh, I got it! Been thinking about the accessories needed for hand/palm stropping. For right handers, a pair of chainmail gloves with a leather palm for the left glove and the right glove just having small gripping pieces of leather to facilitate grasping a DE blade safely. Obviously, the southpaw gloves would be reversed.

I'll get 'em made up and sell 'em through Hammacher Schlemmer. I'll clear at least a gazillion dollars the first year!

And someone would buy them, too. [Image: laughing-1.gif]

The funny thing, I just started doing this with the cork, like I mentioned before, but the more I read this thread, the more I realize that' is dangerous business, lol.....I may pass on the cork, lol......

I erred above. I said my new blade that I palm stropped would be used for Saturday's shave. Actually, it was this mornings' shave (Sunday).

So, my palm stropped blade was a Nacet, one that I have used in this same razor (NEW SC) and the same soap etc. Only variable was the fact that the blade was palm stropped from the git go. Conclusion? Certainly no worse and if I stretch my imagination, just a little, I might even attribute a slightly smoother shave to it.

My clean up procedure lends itself to stropping after each use as I take the razor apart and dry each component, including the blade, before reassembling. That puts the blade in hand before reassembly, therefore the stropping only adds about 20 seconds to my total time. It'll be interesting to see what perceived benefit, if any, is attached to successive shaves.

Take this for what it's worth (which isn't much of anythig), but I personally noticed little with stropping DE blades, but quite a lot from stropping SE blades. I look forward to hearing what you notice as you experiment.

I strop my blades sometimes and I am pretty sure it does help.  I use an old Valet strop instead of my hand though.

Lately most of the razors I've been using are 3 piece types so the only time I strop is when I take the razor out of packaging.
I watch my angle and keep a light touch so I don't damage the edge.

Something I don't understand is people on the forums saying "that stropping does nothing to stainless blades".
I have plenty of knives that are stainless and a few swipes on my strop will bring them back to shaving sharpness.
Do the blade manufacturers have a secret heat treat that makes them too hard to strop?

I used a Rapira the other day and the first few strokes on both sides of the blade were a tad rough and then it smoothed out considerably and I didn't strop before using.

Lately I've been doing all the blade stropping on my Razorpit. Early on in my shaving journeys I stropped blades with a wine cork, or a piece of styrofoam, also used an old piece of denim for both carts and DE blades.

Clayton

So, my palm stropped blade was a Nacet, one that I have used in this same razor (NEW SC) and the same soap etc. Only variable was the fact that the blade was palm stropped from the git go. Conclusion? Certainly no worse and if I stretch my imagination, just a little, I might even attribute a slightly smoother shave to it.

My clean up procedure lends itself to stropping after each use as I take the razor apart and dry each component, including the blade, before reassembling. That puts the blade in hand before reassembly, therefore the stropping only adds about 20 seconds to my total time. It'll be interesting to see what perceived benefit, if any, is attached to successive shaves.

Okay, three more shaves with the Nacet blade in the same razor with all other variables kept the same. Only difference is that I palm stropped the blade after each shave. That made a total of four shaves with this blade. I shouldn't have stretched it to 4 shaves because this last shave was a bummer! But, a reasonably smooth bummer if that makes sense.

Overall, my perception is that the palm stropping did nothing to make the shaves better in any way, merely made them feel a little smoother, and even that requires a little imagination to arrive at that conclusion. As is necessary in this crazy endeavor, YMMV applies. This barely perceived result is for this Nacent blade in the NEW SC razor with soap, brush and technique held steady. My future wrt Palm stropping?... Not going to bother with it with DE blades in spite of it only requiring 20 seconds to accomplish. Not worth the risk of cutting myself with a lapse in concentration while handling the blade in the stropping process. QED!

Palm stropping has never done anything good for me. Only seems to dull the blade to the point of needing to chuck it.

All evidence has been buried. All tapes have been erased.

I've never advised it for those thin flexible edges. Stropping is more for SE blades, prticulrly wedge blades and straights. I have, however, found it helpful in my regular SE blades, both with & without a spine.