John F,
The whole point about the nature and position of stall strips is that they give warning without affecting stall handling. Indeed with some aircraft types the position of the strip to achieve this was only finalised during production flight test.
Don't some airplanes use stall strips to ensure the airplane stalls 'evenly'? I've seen a number of airplanes that have stall strips only on one side.
Weekendflyer,
Simply put, the stall strips induce unsteady flow (usually vortex shedding of some description) in to the airflow over the wing, which can be felt as buffet, when the wing is a few degrees of AOA below the stall AOA. The resulting buffet will not cause a stall because it does not lead to dramatic and sudden separation of flow across the majority of the top surface of the wing.
The stall strips induce unsteady flow into the airflow over the wing. Surely the stalling AoA is affected by stall strips?
If a certain airplane were to have no perceptable buffet before stall, stall strips would be added to provide a buffet. If you compared the critical AoA of one airplane with stall strips to an identical airplane, except without stall strips, wouldn't you find that the critical AoA is higher on the airplane without stall strips?