5 Shaves under my belt...Blade dull already?

New to the world of straight razor shaving. Long time fan, but I never was able to get into the game until I received a sight half seen deal from whipped dog on Friday.

First shave was rough, I got careless and gave myself a nice slive on my left cheek. It's nearly healed now.

Next shave was without incident save for some razor burn and a subsequent ingrown.

Shave after that was fantastic. Almost no burn, only one or two (very) small nicks, and very close save for my neck under the jawline...I still can't figure that out.

4th shave was largely without incident save for a nick under my lip.

This morning, I lathered up and the blade felt like it was catching a lot and required more pressure to cut. It also was skipping a bit...those two combined made for a difficult, not very close, and bloody shave ( I got my ear...of all things my damn floppy earlobe).

After the shave I tried a HHT with one of the hairs from my head. No Go...it required both pressure and motion to cut.

I strop leather and canvas 15 times and 25 times respectively before and after each shave. I have no nicks on my strop and have been very conscious to not touch the blade on anything.

Is it likely that poor tecnique has dulled my blade already?

To that end, I received a barber's hone from WD as well. Would I potentially be able to touch up my blade with this and how, or should send it back to Larry for a re hone after only 5 shaves?
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Strop more, a lot more. 25 is nothing :)

how much more?

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I would do 50 laps on the linen and 100 laps on the leather

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Originally Posted by geauxtig3rs

how much more?

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This is something you have to experiment with. I believe somewhat of middle of the pack numbers are 30linen/60 leather. Try those and adjust from there. I am not sure how much experience you have on the strop but you need to have good technique for best results.

Linen then leather? I've been doing it backwards? doh

I agree, 15 - 25 passes on your strop is not enough... I make at least 150 - 200 passes before a shave. This maybe excessive, but it has now become habit. I myself have been straight shaving for 5 - 6 months. Like you, my first shaves were good. However the one thing I didn't have was consistency. It wasn't until my 3rd month that I felt each shave would go flawlessly. My point is that although I stared great, my learning curve only began to start from my 8th shave onwards and I felt like I had taken 5 steps back at that point... Of course your recent experience could be the result of not enough time spent at the strop. Best advise is to strop for 10 minutes while concentrating on your technique. As your technique improves that 10 minutes will be halved and so on... Good luck.

Geaux,

New Shavers are MUCH harder on edges than someone w/ a year's experience. Both stropping and the shaving stroke itself affect edge longevity. Steep angles in the stroke, straight line strokes instead of scything/guillotine strokes contribute, but the biggy is stropping.

I'm no expert - more like succeeding in spite of a deficit of natural talent by overwhelming amounts of practice. For your linen, it cleans, but also straightens so the leather can sharpen and burnish. To increase the abrasion of your linen/canvas, check the method of the honorable Sixgunner:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...vas-paste.html

Dovo white paste or Glen's method simply add chalk to the surface.

Others have found that more than one stropping cycle can give a real improvement: linen, then leather, then linen, then leather - sorta like a pyramid routine on the strop instead of the hones.

In a month or two, look up the 'advanced strokes' in the wiki, looking for the scything and guillotine strokes. They're easier on the edges also.

+1 to comments made so far with one caveat. Eliminate the linen and focus on the leather. That is where it counts and this removes another variable that may not be helping the blade at all. 50+ passes is what I do sometimes between passes. A really sharp blade spoils you quick and I have a very dense beard. My chin almost requires a machete! :rofl2: You are on the right track. Keep it up and the fine edge should return, especially after only five shaves.

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Originally Posted by Gammaray

+1 to comments made so far with one caveat. Eliminate the linen and focus on the leather. That is where it counts and this removes another variable that may not be helping the blade at all. 50+ passes is what I do sometimes between passes. A really sharp blade spoils you quick and I have a very dense beard. My chin almost requires a machete! :rofl2: You are on the right track. Keep it up and the fine edge should return, especially after only five shaves.

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I bought this really cool old razor a few months back, a singing frog manganese steel bladed model with about a 5/8 blade (half hollow? I don't know or recall) and I REALLY like the way it works and feels in my hand. I've played with stropping a LOT, currently using an AMbrose 3" horsehide and having very good results with ABOUT 50 laps and using the linen side maybe 25-30 times. I have these ADD moments and frequently lose count. THIS seems to be the magic number for THIS blade. For now.

I've got a Dovo I like a lot that takes a LOT more stropping to get right. I'm real new at this, and I'm sure I'll discover the combination of leather/linen that works for various blades, I assume each has its best lap count to finish ratio.

Norm

"It's easier to keep your blade sharp than it is to sharpen your blade". Every razor is different and they get dull at different rates depending on the beard they encounter and potentially technique but not as much as encountering the hairs. I keep a natural combo bout belgian in my medicine cabinet and at the end of every week give the razor a few licks to keep it sharp.

Hopefully it is not overzealus stropping.

I strop perhaps 15 on the linen if I even use the linen and then about 65 on the leather. A lot depends on the draw of your strop, mine is getting nice and broken in so it has a fair amount of grab. Your milage may vary. Try stopping about 100, shave and see....... If it works next time try 75.

Go slow at first on the strop, keep the spine against the strop at all times. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Be patient with stropping and it will come to you.

I ran into the same situation when I first started straights. It was stropping, pure and simple. For me, I was being too delicate with the blade on the strop and therefore not getting as much out of the laps I spent on the strop.

To fix this I read several threads on stropping, particularly from Sham (Hi_bud_gl) and Davis (AFDavis). Then on recommendations from them and Glenn I chalked my canvas and added intentional pressure to the spine of my razor as I stropped. With 50 laps on chalked canvas and 100 on leather my edge came back and I had happy shaves for about two more weeks (15 or so shaves).

Now a days I strop 30 canvas (no chalk) and 50 leather before each shave and my razors last about a month before needing touched up. I use no pasted strops or sprays.

If you're putting too much pressure on the blade as you strop then what helped me won't help you...but I'm pretty sure your issues are related to stropping. I also think your razor's probably not so far gone that you can't strop it back to shape based on your descriptions.

**My Stropping guides: Hold the strop just tight enough that sags about a strop's thickness in the middle. That's taut. Apply pressure only to the spine, and only enough to cause about a 1/2" depression of the strop when it passes the midway point. Go slow and steady. Starting out it took me several seconds to finish each lap. Now my entire stropping routine takes less than 2min, but that comes after learning muscle memory.

Hope it helps.
Peace,
Jim

For me as a beginner this is an interesting topic.

My straight razor is DOVO's Prima Klang. Up until now I use my leather/canvas strop according to the information I got during my two day course "classical shaving".

After each shave I do not use my straight razor for two days. Minutes before my next shave I do about 30 passes on the canvas and 60 passes on the leather.

When shaving the blade "feels" as sharp as the first time. Since the beginning six weeks ago I shaved some fifteen times. I must admit that I am not fully smooth afterwards but that's just a lack of practice. For me the results are better than expected. But there is a long way to go for that excellent shave.

I wonder how long it will take before I get the feeling my Prima Klang is blunt.

In March I will join a day course "sharpening a straight razor". I will share the details on this forum.

It's actually quite interesting to see all the different ways people care for their razors, I started with just following what some said and found what works best for me.. and I'm still changing it from time to time as I learn more..

For ME , the regimen is:

Before shave
20 Passes Linen
60 Passes Leather

After shave
20 Linen
20 Leather

Plus, I have some pasted balsa, about once every other week (I have a few razors so I rotate) I do 5 passes on green paste, then 5 passes on red paste and then 50 linen and 100 leather, seems to keep my edges pretty well.

Again that is what "I" do YMMV

I'm in exactly the same situation.
Thanks for starting this thread, and many thanks for the kind responses.

We have all been through it when we started, it is an art that does take patients and skill to fully enjoy. It's funny to say now because i made some of these very mistakes year ago but every element of straight razor shaving adds up to how a shave goes. Each step is vitally important to a great shave starting with a properly honed razor, to proper stropping and stropping enough to get the blade straight, beard prep, technique during the shave, and after shave care.

You can't shortcut any of the steps NOT one. It's like a symphony each of the instruments together perfectly in tune and right on the mark make for wonderful heavenly musical experience, but if you have one instrument in the group out of tune, off beat, etc.. it will lessen or kill the enjoyment.

Which brings me to two points.
1. Will you always get that heavenly experience, of course not no two shaves will be the same but they will get progressively better and consistently better as you become more experienced, even the best of us have a crappy shave here and there no matter how experienced we have become.

Will you ever get that perfect shave? I believe we all continue to chase that perfect shave which is why we are always trying new hones, new strops, new creams, new blades, different techniques and the likes we get dam good one's but a perfect shave is one that you treasure.

2. What experience brings is the ability to know which of those instruments are out of tune, and which need to be corrected when things go out of sync, in the beginning it's hard to tell I'm under stropping, or my cream was to dry, or I rolled my edge. In time you will learn how to know what to tune to get a good shave, and what works for you.

Cream you can experiment with, stropping you can always try and correct, technique we are always learning and looking for new and better ways. Honing you need a benchmark, you need to know what a blade should feel like and that in and of itself can be a challenge, one easily corrected by being sent out to a credible honemeister.

Step back and learn to tune your instruments with patients and you too will one day enjoy the daily symphony that we have all grown to cherish in our shaving time.