Thread: razor dulling

Originally Posted by Utopian

ONE stroke with the spine lifted off of the leather can trash your edge.

And many of us have done it when new, and been able to tell with the next shave, "Something's wrong?!?" You are not alone!

There is no "angle adjustment" in stropping or honing. The angle is built into the blade geometry. Both spine and blade edge must make contact at all times. If your edge is on the strop and your spine is not, you've likely just killed your edge. This is one area in straight razor craft where the old "your mileage may vary" quote does not apply.

Originally Posted by Utopian

Take home message is that both the spine and the edge MUST maintain contact with the strop during each and every stroke on the leather. ONE stroke with the spine lifted off of the leather can trash your edge.

So if that is done, what's the plan of action to resolve? Stropping? Touch up on 12k? Or does one need to go back to a bevel set?

Thanks everyone. I am not sure where i got the idea that i must lift the spine whne stropping. I rehoned the razor and am now re-teaching myself stropping. I havent done enough shaving yet to see the difference.

It depends on how much damage was done.

Look at the edge straight down and see how bad the damage is, how many chips and how deep. If you see reflections, look at the bevels from the side to see how deep the chip/s is/are.

If they are lite a touch up on a 12 or 8k should hone them out.

If they are deeper, there are two schools, one is you do some laps on the lightest stone and work progressively backwards to more aggressive stones until the chip is removed.

Or just bevel set the razor, completely removing the chip and build a whole new bevel.

Either way you will remove the same amount of steel and end up with the same new bevel, but going backwards often takes more time and you end up doing a full bevel set anyway.

So the answer is… it depends on what you see when you look at the edge.

Gleaning what I can about your comments about angle adjustments and such, I guarantee this razor needs to be sent to a pro for re-honing. Not trying to bust your chops, just want to see you have a pleasurable experience with the straights.

I just wanted to update this. I re-honed it, and have been stropping with the spine and edge on the leather. Today, more than a month later, the edge feels still pretty sharp....like i recently had it honed...but has touched nothing but the leather since my OP on this thread. That must of been my problem. Thanks guys.

I would guess that it is careless stroping, because like may have said bothe the spine, and blade , should both be in constant contact throught the stroke with the leather/webbing/cloth, and the one thing that i can think of is that on one of your passes your hitting your blade against the leather, which will kill your edge in about the time your describing , if not sooner , so slow down on your stoping