Thread: My Stropping Tipss

These tips are just my experience and opinion. Maybe someone else can benefit from them.

Since learning to hone, I have honed about 60 razors, and I set aside about 8 of them because the weren't *quite* what I wanted, a little irritation when shaving against the grain on my neck.

Well, two weeks ago I scored a very nice old Red Imp strop that someone's great grandfather and lovingly broken in for me :-)

Anyway, I did 150 fast, reasonably hard strokes on those razors, and 7 of them ended up becoming the absolute finest razors I have ever shaved with.

Tips:

1. Always, always, always warm up your strop first by running your palm up and down it fast. Leather loves to be rubbed and handled.
2. I roll a glass bottle up and down the strop a few times before stropping the razor. It flattens out the surface and gives it a nice draw.

Several things:

1. A hollow ground razor will make more noise when stropping than a wedge.

2. The leather has grain, so usually the razor makes more noise coming back toward you than going away.

3. The "Draw" noise is not loud, it is quieter than the *bad* noises.

4. You "feel" the draw, rather than hear it. If you hold the spine against the strop and then lower the edge onto it while moving, a properly honed razor will create uniform resistance. Takes practice to feel it.

5. A loud reedy sound means only the spine is in contact with the strop. Check your technique.

6. A loud singing sound means you have lifted the spine. The edge could be damaged. If it was only part of one stroke, then go ahead and finish stropping and try the razor. I have done this and had no damage. Otherwise the razor will need honing again.

I've found that a freshly honed razor, stropped a hundred or so times before each shave will improve every time it is stropped for about 3 shaves. After that, 50 strop strokes every shave will keep it shaving for months.

Then the razor will start to go downhill. A good W&B will just start to miss whiskers, and going back over the area gets fewer and fewer of them, until it is a pain. Time to hone.


Hope this helps someone.

Thanks for the info. I am really having a bad time getting the razor shave ready.I have several new razors, and when I strop the razors before a shave I am either not stropping enough or something, I do not know what it isbut he razors seem to be dull by shave time.If I would have known that this was going to be this disappointing, I probably would have opted to spend money another way.I am not one for giving up, just hope I don't damage these razors in the process.I am trying about 20-30 on the linnen side and about 50-65 on the leather side. I have one of Tony Millers Latigo(red) strops.Honest guys, I really dont know whats going on. Any suggestions would really be helpful. Thanks. I have had these razors honed by professional people and dont know if I have already ruined the edge r something in the technique I am using.
I have watched Lynn's video and have tried to understand about preperation and have tried that also. STILL DULL.....

That is good info for us newbies. I am currently doing 60, and I can feel it starting to get dull. I will up to 100 for a few days.

Great advise! Thanks a lot!
Goes to confirm some theories I had on the same subject.
Stropping properly a well honed razor will keep it going for quite some time. I've been shaving with the same blade since February, giving it some laps on a pasted strop once in a while, and only now it is starting to dull... I was shaving this morning and the razor started pulling a bit. Stropped again (50 or 60 laps) and it did the job. Have to send it out soon, though. Good thing I have two gorgeous shave-ready blades coming my way pretty soon. Let's hope it's tomorrow...

Originally Posted by driver/examiner

Thanks for the info. I am really having a bad time getting the razor shave ready.
I have watched Lynn's video and have tried to understand about preperation and have tried that also. STILL DULL.....

Did you have your new razors honed by anyone?

My first big mistake was purchasing a "shave ready" razor from Premium Knives, which only had the factory grind and had never been honed. No amount of stropping will make such a razor shave.

The Dovo factory claims their razors are shave ready but they are not. All new razors must be honed before they can be stropped and shaved with.

Originally Posted by toolarts

The Dovo factory claims their razors are shave ready but they are not. All new razors must be honed before they can be stropped and shaved with.

Toolarts,
Great thread, but I wanted to report that my experiences with Dovo razors are different. I 've first hand experience with four Dovos purchased between October 2007 and present. All four shaved well right out of the sealed box. I've heard a few others with similar experiences. I've honed three of them, and they all had an unusual bevel, as if they were honed with tape on the spine, a condition that took a bit of extra work when it became time for a first honing job.
Maybe me and my straight shaving friends were just lucky. Maybe the store where we bought those razors has a nasty reputation and they dare not else at Dovo than to supply that store with shaveready razors. Maybe everybody else is presuming that they are going to be dull and don't even bother with trying first. I don't know.

If money is not an issue I can understand that a newby would not take chances and choose the "prehoned by a honemeister" option, if available at the store of choice. But to say that all new Dovos need honing right out of the box, is an overstatement.

Great stropping tips, by the way. The warming up tip is new to me. I usually rub the palm of my hand over the strop once, to make sure there's no weird grit on there. I'm gonna try rubbing it some more and see what it does for me.

Thanks for sharing,

Bart.

Appreciate the tips. There are some things that I had not heard of before. Very interesting.