Thread: Anxious Newbie

Sounds like you are following the SR shave Wiki for beginners, GOOD MAN!! Keep it up and take your time, you'll get more acclimated. In my opinion, you are going easy and I think you can get away with another partial shave without stropping. But you are going to have to strop sooner or later.

Okay, million dollar question, how long have you had your razor and how long have you been practicing your stropping? Take your time, don't worry about speed, just focus on technique with stropping by keeping the spine in contact with the leather and do not put any pressure on the razor. Just use the razor's weight on the strop and go slowly making sure the razor is flat on the leather, you'll develop the muscle memory to become more proficient with stropping. If you roll the edge on the strop, find someone here in the forum who will rehone your razor.

Link, I rolled my edge while I was learning to strop and I am sure many guys in this forum have done so too. It can be fixed, but we can possibly avoid your rolling the edge.

Originally Posted by Link8382

So today I had my first partial straight razor shave. So far so good, still a little awkward, still have to work on skin stretch but all in all not too bad. Not quite as scary as I thought it might be and totally doable. Since I only did a partial shave do you think I can get away with another partial shave prior to stropping. Although I am practicing utilizing the butter knife strop suggestion, I am a little concerned about ruining the edge. I don't want to screw up the edge before I even get started. I am slowly getting the hang of stropping with the butter knife.