Flip blade to extend its life.

I will say it again

 

For me stropping, whether on your hand or a towel, only helps clean the cutting edge preventing the blade from gumming up with a film of soap and crud. I rarely use the same razor twice in a row so sometimes that razor will sit for a couple weeks before I use it again. My take is that stropping simply cleans the blade. This might get you one more shave out of a blade but I haven’t really noticed that to always be true.
I did once try to sharpen a DE blade on a leather and fabric strop but it totally ruined the edge. I’m sure my angle was way off but at 8-10 cents a blade I don’t think it’s really worth the effort.


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More than a saving of 10 cents is a therapy, and it's free!

 

I never loosen my razor or touch the blade in any way except to shave with it until it's time to change the blade. That can be as much as three months. Handling the blade is probably best avoided in my opinion.

 

How could you possibly cut yourself hand stropping? It's impossible unless someone throws you against a wall or something.

 

Ahhh another no bloomer. Good for you! Blooming is for flowers. And dipping the tips of the brush into the warm water gives warm lather wìthout soaking a brush.

I would agree except for carbon steel SE blades. They have to be dried every shave...but they do have a spine on one side.

You have never had a full contact early morning shave with Chuck?

 

Modern stainless blades are coated, the steel doesn't touch your skin. The only thing stropping can do is wear away the coating faster.

Flipping might actually give you a side with fresh coating,... just a thought. I assume we are allowed to have those here.

 

Your just shaving with the very edge right? Is there really another side to the razor edge? Coatings are marketing anyway. I shave with uncoated blades all the time. They work just as good. Except they do help keep rust away

 

I am unable to find it at the moment, but somewhere there is an article about early stainless blades and the evolution of the coatings used. Apparently the first efforts at producing thin DE blades out of stainless were a complete failure, they were grabby and rough and unusable. It was only with the use of coatings that the stainless blades became a reality. With ongoing research and the use of different substances and application methods, the modern stainless blade has surpassed most carbon blades for smoothness and longevity of service.
So, it seems, coatings are not just marketing, but are necessary for the smoothness that we all enjoy from stainless blades.

 

Yet there are stainless straights that are not coated. At least I think there are. I will admit I could be wrong there.

Anyway it goes flipping blades and hand stropping DE blades is useless. If you wear the coating off the edge of the blade its gone off the edge. No matter if you flip the blade the edge is still missing the coating.

 

I remove my blade between shaves, so I'm never sure which side I used last. And yes, I'm sure it does work.

 

BULLY!!!!!

 

I think this is actually backwards. Most high carbon steels are much harder than the usual stainless steels. (More brittle, more prone to rust, but harder)
http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/12/why-buy-carbon-steel-knives-best-kitchen-tools.html (yes, it's not an 'official' rockwell hardness chart, but it was what I came up with in 10 seconds)

Mind you - both are harder than hair.

The difficulty with sharpening stainless is that you can easily over sharpen because it's softer, and then you have to keep doing it. It's also easy to dull it.

 

Ok. Works for me

 

I do NOT flip my DE blade to extend its life. I am too lazy- I mean pressed for time - to do that.
I notice that part of the conversation turned toward other blade maintenance rituals - including BLADE STROPPING.

Hand stropping a DE blade IS something that I have done on more than one occasion. I also hand strop my straight razors.
To be sure, I only strop a DE blade on occasion. I am too (lazy) pressed for time to remove a DE blade for each shave.
I do however find this practice helpful. Sometimes I do it just to clean the blade. Or to troubleshoot a less than smooth blade.

I can sometimes "feel" a rough spot on a blade by hand stropping it. Some would say that is not possible.
Others would say that it does nothing to strop a DE. That the metal is too hard. But remember what stropping does.
Stropping is a method of realigning or straightening out the thin edge of the blade. It is NOT sharpening the edge.
The result of stropping is obvious on a straight razor. I have tried to shave with a used straight razor with no stropping.
It was an unpleasantly rough shave.

So, for my shave today, I took the well used (10 shaves) DE blade out of my razor, rinsed it and palm stropped it.
The soap scum was very evident on this blade. I had some hand sanitizer on the counter and put some on my palm.
After about 25-30 passes on my "sanitized" palm, the razor blade looked pretty fresh and shiny. Took about 3 minutes.


I really like this Boss razor. It is definitely in the TOP 3 of my DE razors.
I got a great BBS shave with 2+passes. Didn't really need the 3rd pass on the neck & under the chin - but hey - it felt good!
So, I am sure that the debate will continue.
-BUT-
THIS WAS A REALLY SMOOTH SHAVE! Much better than the last one I had from this razor/blade combo.
So, maybe flipping a blade WILL help align the edge of the DE. I couldn't say.
I know I wouldn't spend the time and effort for my self.
YMMV.