Thread: Anyone in Austin TX who can help me strop?

I have a hanging strop (canvas one side, leather other side) and I'm having trouble stropping it on the leather side. I'm also concerned that I may have rolled the edge on my straight. Although I don't fully understand what "rolling the edge" means, the way I understand it, it's something you can do by stropping improperly that messes up the edge. I'm at the point where I'm not certain that my edge is as sharp as it needs to be from stropping. What I'm looking for is someone in Austin who wouldn't mind helping me with things like working on my stropping technique, stropping my razor on their strop (so I can rule out a dull edge during my next shave, because it sometimes makes that ripping sound and I'm trying to see if that's due to bad prep or a dull razor). This may be a weird question but it would really be helpful. I'll treat you to lunch or dinner or something for your time if you want. Any takers?

It would be good to consider all aspects of your shaving. The less variables there are, the easier it is to find a solution. I'm fairly new to stropping as well, so you should probably take what I say with a grain of salt. Having said that, I think that rolling an edge means that instead of having the razor perfectly flat on a perfectly flat strop, there is a slightly steeper angle being generated when you move the razor accross the surface. This could be from the spine of the razor coming off the strop, or there being too much slack in the strop. Either way, I think this "pushes" the edge of the razor up/curls it a little bit faster than the leather is taking metal off. Maybe a better way of putting it, taken to the extreme, would be to rake the razor perendicular to the strop. No doubt this would make for a relatively dull razor. So, the closer you get everything to perfectly flat, the sharper your razor will be. If you have figured out that you did something wrong, it might take a lot of correct stropping to get the edge back to where it needs to be to shave with it, depending on how dull it is. It might even take some honing. Or, your razor could be sharp and it's actually your prep. Or it could be both. I know it took some time for my face to adjust to shaving with a de/se, not to mention figuring out what works best for my face. I live in NW houston, but that might be too far away for you. But, hey, if all else fails, you can always send it off to be sharpened. What kind of razor do you have? Where'd you get it from? If you don't get an answer from anybody in austin, you can try and find somebody on the srp map and send a pm. Don't forget to search the forums high and low. Somebody else may have already answered this question somewhere.

My suggestion would be to call around and see if you can find a barber who will give you a stropping lesson for the price of a haircut. That's what I did and it was money well spent! I didn't do it in Austin though so can't recommend anyone.

I wouldn't worry too much about rolling the edge of your razor as long as you are using a light touch and keeping the slack out of the strop ...and even if you did it can be corrected by just stropping some more (OK a lot more) using proper technique.

It's like any other skill...if you practice enough you will eventually get the motor skills down pat. Just go slow and easy until you get the motion down...and the hardest part to learn is the "flip" where you roll the razor in your fingers. If you are having trouble with that I would suggest that you practice just the flip (without any stroking) on an old belt. The ONLY difference between a razor stropped quickly and one stropped slow is the amount of time it takes!

If all else fails PM me and I'll show you what little I know.

I have found, that after getting my first stropping lesson from a barber back in 1982 (am I really getting that old), that if you pay more attention to the spine of the razor than the edge stropping seems to come much easier....
Concentrate on keeping the spine on the strop, and moving it across the strop, and the edge just takes care of itself....

I just wrote that and I am not so sure it makes any sense

Originally Posted by modul8r

I have a hanging strop (canvas one side, leather other side) and I'm having trouble stropping it on the leather side. I'm also concerned that I may have rolled the edge on my straight. Although I don't fully understand what "rolling the edge" means, the way I understand it, it's something you can do by stropping improperly that messes up the edge. I'm at the point where I'm not certain that my edge is as sharp as it needs to be from stropping. What I'm looking for is someone in Austin who wouldn't mind helping me with things like working on my stropping technique, stropping my razor on their strop (so I can rule out a dull edge during my next shave, because it sometimes makes that ripping sound and I'm trying to see if that's due to bad prep or a dull razor). This may be a weird question but it would really be helpful. I'll treat you to lunch or dinner or something for your time if you want. Any takers?

I'm no expert, but I'd be happy to help you out. My stropping has been successful so far, though I still put a nick or two in my strop. Tecate, davidsbonanza, and blaireau are all austinites as well and a few others that aren't coming to mind at the moment. We had a meetup a few months ago, if you look at the thread here you will find other area folks, some plenty more experienced than I.