Thread: Help Stropping

First of all welcome!

Good stropping technique is very important when shaving. You should keep the razor flat on the strop, using minimal pressure, and strop in a smooth back and forth motion with the spine leading. If you don it with the edge leading you'll wreck the strop and dull the razor, so dont do that...!

Have a look at this section of the Wiki on stropping.

What do you mean when you say you've ruined the strop? Have you sliced it? If so, this can usually be repaired as long as the damage isnt too bad. Pics of your strop would be useful to assess the damage?

Try practicing with a butter knife as well, to get used to the motion. Once you're happy, try it with your razor and hopefully you'll get much better results!

Good luck and keep us posted!

What helped me is to slow down and watch the EXACT time I started to lift the blade at the end of the stroke, and the exact time I lowered the blade on the way into the next stroke (either direction applies here).

You keep the spine of the razor on the strop at ALL times. So it is imparitive you understand the timing of the lifting and lowering of the edge. If you don't time this right, you will nick the strop - no if, ands or buts about it.

So, what I trained my finger tips to do is to start the lift just before the end of the stroke, and then, not lower it back until I started the opposite stroke. This took over a month to get the muscle memory in my hands to do this automatically. If you actually saw me strop, the lifting and lowering of the edge is so fast and smooth that it is undetectable as to when it is actually taking place. But it does take place when I am telling you. I refused to replace my nicked up strop until I could do this for 2 months with no nicks.

That is the best way I can explain it. I hope it helps.

David