Thread: Newbie Stropping Practice

Oh, one more suggestion. Place your index finger under the strop widthwise and roll your hand slightly toward you. The strop will flatten out and become more level that way.

wow excellent i should say. just small add your thumb a little on top of the blade i mean may be 1/8 inch in this case if you want put a little pressure you can with thumb. Wrist work is unbelievable how fast you fix. GREAT .

when you strop toward to you ok . away is perfect

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

It looks pretty good to me. Looks a little lighter too. Here are two things I suggest based on what I see . . .

You can easily see the length of the strop and where the string ties to the strop. Use that knowledge and compensate for the speed of your stroke at the end. It looks like your sweeping into the tie down without consideration for where it is. You can see where it is, you've got to flip up in that region. If your strop were longer you'd be able to learn to "downshift" a little before you get to the turn around. Its like making a car go around a turn. You don't go in full speed and then slam on the brakes.

In the first video, more than the second, your using too much pressure at the top, again near the tie down. The physics are difficult to explain but the tie down is a fixed spot so ANY pressure at that spot rolls the edge. In the middle you can do whatever you want but the tie down requires a slow, no pressure, light, danty, delicate, soft, roll; followed by a soft landing, then the return trip, and pick up speed again, until the next turn by your fingers.

Hope that helps . . . your stropping well. Since you went to the trouble to post that great vid I thought I'd critique you very strictly.

Yes this does help! Definitely new information about the tie down region I did not find that anywhere that I looked about learning how to strop. Now that I watch the second video again, I can actually see the deformation in the area around the string. It looks much more rigid, so I see that I can roll my edge there. I will try to fix the "downshift" also. Great points!

Originally Posted by hi_bud_gl

wow excellent i should say. just small add your thumb a little on top of the blade i mean may be 1/8 inch in this case if you want put a little pressure you can with thumb. Wrist work is unbelievable how fast you fix. GREAT .

when you strop toward to you ok . away is perfect

Thanks bud! I watched it again and I can see what my thumb is doing. I will always keep it on top of the tang after I flip. I can see that on the downstroke towards me my thumb is off the top sometimes but on the upstroke I see that my thumb is on top of the tang. I suppose this could cause uneven pressure between each stroke!

Yeesh.. after watching that video, I realize that my stropping technique *sucks*. This is a great video... should be "must watch" material for new guys.

you seem to have recieved all the advice needed so I won't add any more detail to that. I would like to say that your first stropping vid and the technique you use is how I strop on a pasted hanging strop. So if ever you venture to pasted hangers this technique is still handy to practice.

PuFF