Originally Posted by
cpcohen1945
Trumper is a respected brand; adding shaving cream won't help it much. If you have a nice thick lather, that's all you can ask for.
Two things to watch for:
1. If you're trying to maintain 30 - 45 degrees, your razor angle may be too steep. "Tugging" is sometimes caused by a too-steep blade angle.
Lay the blade flat against your skin, and start a shaving stroke. As you move the blade, lift the spine slowly until the edge starts to cut beard. That's (roughly) the right angle to use.
Don't put pressure on the blade as you do this. Don't think of the blade as a knife cutting hair. Think of it as a squeegee, removing lather from your face.
2. You may have done some damage to the edge with bad stropping. If you were lifting the spine of the razor, and letting the edge rest on the strop during your stroke, that's fairly likely.
Two suggestions (in order of cost):
. . . _Slowly, without lifting the spine_, with almost all the pressure on the spine (rather than the edge), give the razor 100 laps on a cloth or newpaper strop, followed by 100 laps on a leather strop. You might be lucky . . .
and if that doesn't work,
. . . Send it out for honing.
Charles