Thread: Chunks outa my strop, oops

It would seem that when stroping I keep taking knicks and chunks outa the leather. I am going spine first and going slow to start but every time i place the blade on the strop it bites. I admit I did go the wrong way once....

Any sugestions on how to prevent this? and how to fix my current mess up?


James

That will depend on how bad the damage is. Strop treatment and repair - Straight Razor Place Wiki has some hints.

There are also some videos in the stropping section of the Wiki that you should watch. Stropping should be a fluid motion, and the spine should not leave the strop.

Thanks for that link BeBerlin. I just did the same thing to my VB strop last night while stropping a razor with a loose pivot. Dumb, I know. I went to readjust my hand/razor position and... SLICE! A nice big chunk off of the edge was my reward. I shall try to repair it now.

Oh well, it was a great excuse to finally order that RR Paladin


Must......be.......more........careful.....


Mark

Don't use an expensive strop until you have this thing down. Buy a vintage one off Eboy for now.

I would try and learn to roll the edge up before you stop, and roll the edge down after you begin to stroke the blade. If you can't fix the chunk, you might consider turning the leather around on the strop. That is if you have one with removable fasteners. That way you can start with a new edge on the side you strop on.

Enjoy!

Ray

Hey James, I'm guessing that maybe you are new to this and I hope that maybe this helps, but I think that this is a pretty common issue, I think that what you are describing is the same thing that I did at first and it was frustrating because it kind of doesn't seem possible, and I am pretty sure that what is happening (and it can be kind of difficult to notice) is that when you get to the end of stropping in one direction and you are going to turn the blade over it seems like you stop and then turn the blade over and go back the other direction and then you start noticing these little nicks showing up in the strop toward the ends, and I think that what is really happening is that when you stop at the end of the stroke that you are actually moving the blade back just a very slight little bit before you roll it over and that is what is causing the nicks, that is what I think. So, if that is the case, then as was said earlier the stropping needs to be a continuous motion, right before you get to the end of the stroke you just start to lift the edge of the blade off of the strop keeping the spine on the strop as you go into the spine roll. Hope that maybe that helps.

Thank you control freak, I went and tried it agian and it is exactly that, tho i tried to keep it in a fluid motion, its very difficult to do becuase I broke my wrist years ago and getting that nice flip is the issue. tho after 'playing' with my technique i finaly found it working, just going to take me a little longer than most to do it.

Thanks agian for all the posts!

James

PS like ur thumbnail pic. Xfiles is a fav.