Hey, all. I've been thumbing my Israeli Personna DE blades to get an idea of what to expect from a sharp straight razor, and I am confused as to what I should be feeling for. I have read several descriptions of the TPT (for other newbies, it's when you moisten the pad of your thumb and lightly touch it to the edge of your razor), and I even have the relevant sections of the barber's manual posted here last week printed out, but I am not feeling the "drag" described in either the posts or the manual. Here's what I am doing:

1) Unwrap brand new IP blade from paper
2) Moisten thumbpad with water
3) Lightly touch pad to edge of blade, and slide pad along the edge very slightly to see if it "sticks", or if it feels gritty on a used blade.

The problem is, my thumb just kind of slides on the edge of the blade without dragging at all. Even when I apply enough pressure to dent the skin of my thumb and slide it. If I didn't know better, I would say I had a very dull edge, but these are brand new blades out of the package (and they shave fine as well).

I'm afraid to put even more pressure on the blade because I'm leery of getting a nice slice in my thumb, but I'm not sure what else to do. And I work with computers all day so it's not like I have callused lumberjack hands...

Any help on perfecting my TPT technique would be appreciated. I have read, and fully believe that edge evaluation is an important part of both stropping and (eventually, for me) honing, and I want to make sure I am doing it right.