Well, I just had to try something else. I went back to the strop and stropped for an addtional 50-60 passes. I went real slow and looked at what I was doing and sure enough, there is one spot where I tend to lift the tip of the edge off the leather. I adjusted my arm angle and the pressure I place on the shank using my thumb and that seemed to correct the issue. I have a 3" wide strop so I tried a few different motions. First the X-pattern, that's OK but I have trouble with it. Then I tried keeping the whole blade on the strop and using an angle (say 30 degrees approx.) each way. It ends up making a sort of arc in that at the start of the stroke, the blade is angled and at the end the blade is almost straight across the strop.

Anywho, after about 30 strokes, I looked at the edge with a microscope and noticed that the edge, while pretty straight, had some bright spots on the bevel. I encountered this before so I took some toilet paper and wiped the edge (carefully). Sure enough, the spots were no longer on the bevel. I think this is some microscopic skin that gets cut off during the thumbpad test.

About 30 more strokes and the edge was looking real nice. No chips, no dips, no strange things sticking off of it. It kind of compared to the picture in the library that showed what a properly stropped edge looked like. Not quite as nice as the picture, but real close.

Well, the thumbpad test was even better so I'm now excited for the test shave in the a.m.


If this worked and restored what I think I messed up trying to get it to pass the paper towel test, I will have learned a lesson. Namely hone, and if it will be a time between the honing and the test shave. Walk away from the razor until shave time.

Think I'll go to bed and saw some Z's.