Quote Originally Posted by Undream View Post
Is your razor passing tests? thumb nail, thumb pad, or hanging hair?
Not positive. I rub the edge along the tip of the finger nail to look for dings. There is one, but It doesn't effect me much as I worked most of it out on the initial hone. The edges of the spine have been flatted a bit from the initial hone. Rubbing the blade along the top of a fingernail doesn't seem to tell me anying. Rubbing it along the thumb seems to be a good way to test for sharpness, but I gotta be carfeul not to cut myself.

Maybe it is your stropping technique that needs work -- Stropping does nothing but bring blades to life for me.
What do you mean "brings the blade to life"?

Taught strop + light pressure strokes + rolling on the spine...
Okay, so correct me if I am wrong. The strop should remain 100% flat as if it were laying on the table. Pressure should not exceed the weight of the blade. DOES THIS INCLUDE THE WEIGHT OF THE HANDLE? I think that the rolling spine technique has been mastered, Just not 100% positive about the correct pressure.

for me, 20-30 on the canvas and then 50 on the leather after coming off the hones does absolute wonders.
I don't think I strop that much. Probably 20 on the linen and 30 on the leather, but when I started noticing that the blade appears to get duller when stroping, I would do 4 on the linen just to remove any microscopic burs and 30 on the leather. I also found that stroping halfway through a shave on the leather seems to help, perhaps it is removing dead tissue from the microscope contours of the blade?