Quote Originally Posted by AFDavis11 View Post
3. 30 degree angle when shaving . . . mixed results over these few years. A high angle second pass, maybe. I've even tried a 90 degree angle but ultimately I find 30 degree shaving angle to be the best, everywhere. Might be simplicity but for me I'll call it a rule I'm sticking with.
I've found that my shaving angle has been gradually reducing as my honing has improved. For various reasons I've been paying more attention to what I'm doing lately, and have noticed that for most of my face my blade is very very flat, the spine is just barely off my face (maybe half a spine width). Except on my chin, where it's more like 1 1/2 spine widths. And my lower neck (WTG pass) where it's about 45 degrees, though the ATG pass here the blade is once again much less than a spine width off my face.


Stropping:

I strop 10 laps mid-shave whether I think I need it or not. I really don't see any improvement at the time, but I have noticed that if I don't strop in the middle of the shave then when I finally get around to my chin (shaved last to allow for maximum marination time) the blade isn't as sharp as it could be. If I give it a quick 10 laps on the strop in the middle then the blade is still humming along when I'm done. If I delay stropping until just before my chin then I find I have to give the razor many more laps on the strop to restore the edge.

As with so many other things, YMMV. One of the joys of shaving with these old instruments is learning how to make them work for you.