Close, but not comfortable

Hey, all. I have about 14 straight shaves under my belt at this point and I am not making any progress on the comfort of the shave. From the beginning, I have been able to get very close shaves with no nicks or cuts...as I detailed in an earlier thread, I attribute that to my experience with a DE razor. But shaving with a straight still feels like I am s-c-r-a-p-i-n-g the hair off of my face instead of slicing cleanly. The shave is close, even BBS for the most part, but the blade feels very grabby.

I am using a Kropp blade (one made and ground in Sheffield), and I have had it honed by a honemeister about 12 shaves ago. I have read and reread FAQs, how-tos, and threads, and I think my issue may be one of three things:

1. Stropping technique. I am using a TM apprentice strop and I have been working very hard to develop a good technique, but as my shaves don't seem to improve it's hard to know if I am getting better at stropping or not. I use very light pressure, I keep my hand still, I turn the blade on the spine...I have tried 30 laps, 50 laps, even 100 laps, nothing seems to make the shave more comfortable.
2. Blade needs a touch-up on a hone. As I said, I just had the blade honed by a pro, but it is certainly possible that I screwed up the edge with bad stropping between then and now. I don't own a hone yet, but I was thinking about picking up a chinese waterstone and trying to touch up the blade a bit, since stropping alone doesn't seem to be doing the trick.
3. Bad blade. Kropp blades are generally well regarded here, but I suppose it's possible that I just got a blade that won't hold an edge very well. I don't consider this very likely, but it's a possibility.

So, to sum up...I've got a grabby blade that I can't seem to get super-sharp, despite recently having it professionally honed. I still get very close shaves from the blade, but I feel a lot of tugging and pulling and I end up with razor burn in spots, which I never got from a DE. Any thoughts as to what I could have done to the edge to dull it, and more importantly, how to get it back? Can a blade be stropped to sharpness with enough laps?

I didn't read the whole thread but if your searching for solutions it lies with your point 1, unless you were getting good shaves at the beginning and they have erroded, then point 1 and 2 are suspect. Your blade is probably fine.

The key to stropping is not thinking its as simple as just moving the blade up and down the strop. Its more complicated than that, sorry to say.

First, try adding a touch of pressure on the leather. You need to draw out the edge a little. You can spend forever polishing and aligning, but if the edge isn't drawn out to begin with your wasting your time.

Also, consider a little linen/canvas added to the process of stropping, assuming your linen/canvas isn't really, really rough. If its generally soft and smooth (yet bumpy) you can use a touch of pressure, if not keep in light at first and see how that goes.

Remember, never allow the strop to sag, keep it taut and tight. Hard, like a board. Think of the strop as a "Sticky Hone".

So begin by using a touch of pressure, say on linen, not much, just a touch, then move to the leather, again with a touch of pressure, back to linen and again back to leather. Go SLOW, STEADY, EASY, SMOOTH. Make certain you use an X pattern and hit the entire edge with each individual stroke.

This is drawing out the edge and aligning it along the length of the edge.

Then, finish with leather using NO pressure. This is polishing the edge that you've drawn out. If your comfortable use a little speed, not much, just a little.

This should help your situation quite a bit. If not, the blade needs honing.

Next, use your wrist a little when your shaving. A little rounded motion is the easiest way for a beginner to develop a non-perpendicular stroke, which will help with the pulling sensation.

Those two techniques are where you should start.

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

Assuming that the edge is still in undamaged condition, which it probably is, it sounds like you just need a touch up. You could go for a finishing hone like a coticule, shapton, chinesse 12K or a barber hone. A few passes should get you fixed up.

Another really good alternative would be a pasted paddle or strop. Personally I like a flat bed or a paddle pasted with boron carbide on one surface and chromium oxide on another. If you have more surfaces, as you would on a four sided paddle or a flat bed with extra pads, I would go with .5 and .25 micron diamond.

I've had good success using both methods for that extra sharpness and smoothness that we all want.

Alan has pretty well covered the stropping in his response

Another thought is that your razor needs a little less angle to work at it's best.

What really did it for me was that i discovered in some old straight razor tutorial book it said that the heel of the blade should be leading just ever so slightly...and that made a world of difference for me.

but ofcourse assuming that the edge is not damaged

Thanks so much for the prompt and detailed response! I bought an Apprentice strop, so I don't have a linen or canvas component...I should have just gone for the artisan. Sigh.

I'm going to study your suggestions carefully and work on applying them even without the canvas component. Really appreciate your response, Alan...I was feeling a little lost here and your comments have really given me hope and a direction.

[edit to add] Whoa, a few more great responses came in while I was typing...thanks, guys. Excellent suggestions, all. I was thinking about a pasted paddle strop...probably the two-sided wide paddle rather than the four-sided one, and I had been researching which pastes I might need if I could only have two...Bill's response answered that for me without even asking!

You might do just fine without linen/canvas. Just add a touch of pressure and follow my suggestions. Make sure to follow up with the traditional no pressure stropping at the end. Stick with that until the edge fails to get any better no matter what you do with the strop.

Hone as desired. You'll find your way after a bit of practice.

Alan, after reading and thinking about your post, I went and stropped my razor on the leather with more pressure than I normally use. It felt and sounded quite different...it sounded raspier, and it felt like I was dragging the blade against slightly more friction instead of lightly skating over the top as normal. I did 30 laps with that pressure, and followed it up with another 30 laps with my usual very light pressure to "polish". I'm not due for a shave until tomorrow morning but I tried my clumsy TPT and to my inexperienced thumb it did feel a little "stickier". I'm anxious to see how it shaves tomorrow morning.

Yes, exactly. You've got it. Now if only the edge will remain until tomorrow. :)

Maybe some light stropping in the A. M. too.

I'd like you to keep using the TPT to assess the edge. I think you'll find that generally you'll only need a few light passes to polish the edge. The more passes you do in polishing; the faster the edge will dissappear/degrade.

^ Gosh. I didn't realise that was the case!

Thanks for posting this bit of information. I'm certain it will be of interest to many.

I'm sorry, but you said two things in your post that I have never run across before and I want to make sure I understood you because both have radical implications for my current routine:

• A stropped edge will not "keep" forever...it sounds like to some extent it's "use it or lose it"?
• Over-polishing the edge with very light stropping is counter-productive after a point. So my 100 laps with no pressure was not only not helping the edge, but actually hurting it, in that the resultant edge is prone to disappear that much quicker?

I usually strop in the evening (while the kids are soaking in the tub, lol), and I do about 50 passes with no pressure. Then the following morning without further stropping, I shave (with all the attendant tugging and pulling I mentioned earlier).

If my understanding of your post is correct, then despite all my research I was still managing to do any number of things wrong. No wonder it was a tug-a-thon...:o

I don't think you can over polish an edge by stropping. Probably after 40-60 passes you accomplish nothing further. Of course if you do hundreds of strokes and start applying more pressure thats a different story. As far as stropping before shaving I agree with that. The idea is to have a fresh edge to shave with. On the microscopic level the second you stop the stropping rust begins to develop. You may not see it but it is there and the longer you wait the more accumulates. Unless of course you place the razor in a vacumn. Then you don't have to worry about rust.

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Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Unless of course you place the razor in a vacumn. Then you don't have to worry about rust.

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But then you have to worry about other things like dust bunnies and carpet fiber

Please forgive and excuse me for saying so, but I think other possible problems are beard prep and shaving technique. I don't know why those areas have been completely ruled out as possible problem areas. :shrug:

There is nothing to forgive or excuse...any possibility can be discussed without fear of wounding my pride. :)

As for beard prep, that is one area that I actually have a lot of confidence in, as I have been shaving with a double-edge for two or three years, and in that time I have experimented with lots of different shaving products, finally settling on a few high-quality soaps that I have come to trust. I neglected to mention it in my initial post, but I am not using any foamy goo or anything like that.

As for shaving technique, that is certainly a possibility. Coming from a DE, I know what kinds of angles are necessary to cut my beard, but a safety razor is not a straight razor and it's possible that I am mis-applying the principles. I try to be cognizant of angle and pressure at all times, and I know that in many cases, a particular rough patch is definitely because I dug the razor in too hard or opened it up too far by mistake. The more I shave, the better I am getting about fixing those goofs, but I'll be the first to admit my technique is far from perfect with a straight at this early stage.

I appreciate the suggestions, hoglahoo. You are quite right in pointing out that it would be a mistake to focus exclusively on the condition of the blade without discussing those other factors. In my case I am leaning towards the blade being the main culprit for a number of reasons (it tends to push the hair on my forearms aside instead of slicing it during testing, I can't cut the pad of my wetted thumb even with a fair amount of pressure, and as I said the blade grabs and pulls my beard instead of cutting), but your suggestions do have merit and I am not dismissing either one.

Lets see how the shave goes, but yea, you follow all the conventional wisdom and still get tugging and pulling then maybe its time to stop listening to all the conventional wisdom. Thats a good life lesson there too.

About 7 passes on the strop is all you need to polish an edge, then after a few shaves re-draw out the edge and begin again. Redraw anytime you get some pulling, you fail the TPT, or the razor fails to draw on the strop.

After reading my posts, these URLs might make more sense to you, and help you out a lot. You need to read all three of them carefully, you'll note my advice in there if you read them with a "critical thinking" mindset.

stropping, first stroke

stropping, last stroke

archives, la pogonotomia III

I'm just here to fix problems, after that you can return to all the conventional wisdom you want. :)

Follow-up report: as I said in an earlier post, last night I stropped using more pressure than I had been, and I was rewarded with a different-feeling and different-sounding stropping experience. I felt the razor drag against the leather more, and there was a more pronounced "sssschhhhick" noise on each stroke. Then I followed that up by going back to my ultra-light pressure strokes. (Interestingly, I noticed that rasping sound carried forward into the light pressure strokes...it sounded louder than normal even with no pressure. That could easily have been because I was simply more aware of the sound, though, and not an actual change.)

This morning I gave it a few more "pressure" strokes and another 10 or so light strokes (also giving my strop the first nick, sigh) and then shaved. I knew from the first downward stroke that the stropping had made a difference. I didn't feel the immediate tugging that I had been feeling. It wasn't quite there yet, as the blade still felt grabbier than it should, especially on most of my neck, but definitely an improvement!

Next step for me is to get the blade looked at and possibly refreshed just to make sure I didn't do anything stupid to the edge in my ignorance, and then try to do a better job maintaining that edge with improved stropping. I also want to improve my evaluation technique...I have a feeling that at least some of what I am perceiving as a dull edge is because I am not picking up the subtleties of the thumbpad test. I read things like "the edge should immediately break the skin of a wetted thumb" and "it should feel like your thumb is stuck to the blade" and I am expecting something dramatic and immediate. I suspect the feeling is just more subtle than that and I am just not attuned enough to pick it up.

Again, I truly appreciate all the helpful suggestions. The generosity of spirit here continues to astound me.

That sounds promising. I think you're on your way to a stropping merit badge! :)

Stropping technique is a key component of a great shave. I didn't believe this at first, but then I hit a similar milestone by applying some pressure while stropping, and the edge refinement was quite noticeable.

I also use the TM starter strop (fantastic strop!), and one thing that you may also want to try and play around with is to use the rough side for initial stropping and then go to the smooth side for finish stropping.

I put a little of the TM neat's foot oil on the rough side and rubbed it in to soften things up. Start with light pressure, as the rough side has a lot more friction than the smooth side, and then you can experiment with adding more pressure.

Give it a try. For me, it seems to freshen up the edge a bit more than smooth side stropping, but that may all be in my mind, as I haven't conducted any relative experimants to see what, if any effect it may actually be having. That said, the rough side definitely gives you more draw and a different stropping experience, which I happen to enjoy.

Thanks, that's a neat idea. I don't have any oil, but I will run the blade over the rougher side a few times just to get a feel for the different draw, before finishing on the smooth side.

I am finding I really enjoy stropping, but I am just no good at evaluating the edge with the thumbpad test. I have been practicing a lot with double-edge blades, and I still can't get the feel for it. Last night I took my blade out of my DE razor, which had about six shaves on it and hadn't been used for a few weeks, and then I unwrapped a fresh blade out of the box. I wetted my thumb, and touched each. Damn if the used blade felt stickier than the new! My thumb seemed to glide over the new blade, but the used blade felt a little grabbier.

I then stropped up my secondary razor (my primary one is out for possible refreshing by a pro), tried the test on it, and I just could get no feel for any stickiness. If I lightly ran my thumb over it, I met with no resistance. The harder I pressed my thumb, the stickier the edge felt, but even pressing hard enough to dent my thumbpad a good deal and the moving my thumb up the blade didn't break the skin. And yet the razor shaves pretty well. I don't know, maybe the tips of my thumbs and fingers just aren't very sensitive. I'm really curious how my primary razor feels once I get it back...if the expert says it passed the TPT for him and it still doesn't feel sticky for me, I'll know I am some kind of unfeeling mutant. :cry:

Just want to follow up in case any other newbies might browse this thread looking for tips.

Still using my secondary blade, but the stropping tips in this thread continue to make a world of difference. It seems like every time I shave, the edge feels a touch keener. I usually strop at night...10 or so passes on the unfinished side of a TM apprentice strop, and then 30 passes on the finished side, starting with a bit of pressure and then easing off for the last dozen or so. Then, I give it another 10 or so quick, light strokes just before the shave the next morning.

It really has made a difference, and I just want to impart something to any fellow newbies I have just recently learned: It is impossible to research your way to good stropping technique. I have read a dizzying amount of posts on how to strop in the last few weeks, I printed out Dr. Moss' guide and studied it daily, I printed Joel's stropping guide on B&B and studied it, I even printed the relevant sections of an old copy of Moler's Barber Manual and studied that diligently. I felt like I was prepared, I knew what I was doing. But still, my stropping was poor at first. The only, ONLY way to get good at stropping is to strop. Get a back-up blade, get a practice strop, and go to work. It takes time to learn what good stropping feels like, both on the strop and on your face afterwards. Learn the basics by reading, but perfect the skill by doing. I am far from there yet but I feel like I am making good progress, thanks to the excellent advice I found here.

Excellent update, thanks!

Personally, I have never been able to get the TPT. I usually assess edge keeness with the HHT. I usually start with the hairs on the back of my left hand (I'm right handed..). I try a test cut 2-3 mm above skin level. The advantage of the arm hair tets is that you will be able to actually feel the tug of the edge that is sharp (cuts the hair), but is still not quite "there" yet. My idea of shave ready edge is a back of hand HHT that severs the hair with barely any noticeable tension at all. Sometimes teh hair just literally falls in half when I touch the razor to it. I love that!:D

Keep up the good stropping! I've become somewhat addicted to stropping.

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Originally Posted by DaveF

It really has made a difference, and I just want to impart something to any fellow newbies I have just recently learned: It is impossible to research your way to good stropping technique.... ....The only, ONLY way to get good at stropping is to strop. Get a back-up blade, get a practice strop, and go to work. It takes time to learn what good stropping feels like, both on the strop and on your face afterwards. Learn the basics by reading, but perfect the skill by doing. I am far from there yet but I feel like I am making good progress, thanks to the excellent advice I found here.

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Good observation. It's a little bit like learning to ride a bicycle, isn't it? And it's also important to understand that there is no good reason to give up after only one or two unsuccessful attempts

FINAL UPDATE:

I feel a little, ah, selfish in posting in this thread again because I feel like I have taken up enough of you good people's time; however, I wanted to post the final resolution to this issue in case any other newbies dig up this thread and are looking for answers.

So it turns out my grabby shaves were a result of a two main factors:

1. Poor stropping technique had dulled the edge that a honemeister had put on my blade
2. I did not pay close enough attention to the grain of my beard, and thus was shaving against the grain in some spots on my neck with my first pass (leading to grabbiness and irritation).

The first problem was solved in admirable fashion by, well, I don't want to embarrass him, but let's say a very experienced honemeister who refreshed the blade with an edge so sharp that I merely waved the razor out the window of my bathroom and 3/4 of my lawn cut itself.

The second problem I solved by letting my beard grow for an extra day, and then very carefully feeling the direction of my beard all over my face and neck and sketching the results on a piece of paper to act as a "grain map". Sounds incredibly silly, but it taught me a number of surprising things about my beard and it has really made a great difference in my shaves.

End result of those two things is I got my most comfortable shave yet with a straight this morning, and sacrificed none of the shocking closeness that I had been enjoying up to now. Thank you so much, everyone, for all of your help and guidance!

Glad you posted that . . . technically you owned the thread so its all yours to play with and we enjoy helping out.

Go easy now on the stropping; sharper blade, lighter stropping.

This has been a great thread. I wish every one would take the time to follow up his thread as thorourghly as you did. There's certainly no need to be apologetic about that. Quite the contrary.

I have felt confident about my stropping since a long time, and yet this thread has poked me at re-examining the finer points of my stropping habits. It has meant more for me than the epiphany, that I expected Chromium oxide to be, but that never really met its promise.

I started reading this thread, wondering what I could contribute to help you, but in the end you helped me. A lesson in dignity is always welcomed. :)

Thank you,

Bart.

Thanks for posting that, Bart, that meant a lot. I'm so glad the excellent advice given in this thread helped you out as well. I didn't want to keep talking about myself and my issues over and over again but it is gratifying to know that other people have benefited from the progress of this thread and I appreciate you posting to let me know that.

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Originally Posted by hector

What really did it for me was that i discovered in some old straight razor tutorial book it said that the heel of the blade should be leading just ever so slightly...and that made a world of difference for me.

but ofcourse assuming that the edge is not damaged

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It's funny. I do exactly the opposite.

Because the several barber manuals I have read all indicate you should lead with the toe, not the heel. the razor is honed in such a way that the back edge of the teeth will be used when you lead with the toe or move at a right angle to the blade.

In fact, I have tried leading with the heel, and experienced much worse irritation, and even cut myself with the razor hung up on a whisker.

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Originally Posted by toolarts

It's funny. I do exactly the opposite.

Because the several barber manuals I have read all indicate you should lead with the toe, not the heel. the razor is honed in such a way that the back edge of the teeth will be used when you lead with the toe or move at a right angle to the blade.

In fact, I have tried leading with the heel, and experienced much worse irritation, and even cut myself with the razor hung up on a whisker.

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I found a manual that suggested the same thing that hector noted. It could have been the same manual. It depends on the way you hone. The same barber's manual I read suggested leading with the toe during honing, so in theory the result should be equal and opposite

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DaveF

FINAL UPDATE:

I feel a little, ah, selfish in posting in this thread again because I feel like I have taken up enough of you good people's time; however, I wanted to post the final resolution to this issue in case any other newbies dig up this thread and are looking for answers.

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Dude, we're here precisely because we want to waste our time talking about shaving, razors, strops, etc., etc.!:D

Awesoem folow-up, and congrats on the improvement! That is what I find so gratiftying about straight shaving, the input you can have on making a shave great or not. When you get it right, it is quite satisfying.