Jog,

This 30 degree thing can be a son of a gun to estimate and problematic to measure with a protractor while shaving. Try to elevate the spine of your razor one to two thicknesses of the spine from your face. The closer you are to one thickness, the smoother your shave will feel, but you will leave longer stubble. The closer the tilt is to two spine thicknesses, the closer your shave will be, but at the risk of giving your beginner skin more abrasion and more to complain about.

When stropping, make sure you do not elevate the spine from contact with the leather and keep the strop taut, but you don't have to get nuts about this. A little slack, up to about a half inch or so when passing the blade over the center of the strop, seems to work just fine. Your strop may have a bit of a cup and may be narrower than you blade so do a bit of an X pattern movement while doing the forth-and-back; this should put all the edge in contact with the leather for a nice polish.

Col. Conk soap should work just fine. I'm guessing you have the Amber. I prefer the Almond, but that's just a nose knows thing for me.

good luck, good shaving,