Thread: Stropping over nicks

I think nicks have to be quite bad before they start doing any harm to the razor, so long as the defect in the surface is a scratch or missing leather rather than a raised bump or flap of some sort.

Recently I got an old strop from ebay which was in worse condition than the photo suggested, and I can feel the nicks as the razor goes over them, but it seems to work fine and not damage the edge. I started very cautiously with a razor which was borderline between needing stropping and needing a touch-up on the hones, but it was improved by the strop and I've now used that strop for several razors, all of which benefited. YMMV and all that.

(Quite a few vintage strops have a lot of damage, which shows that the owners continued to use them as they got more and more nicked. Doesn't prove anything, as the owners might have been putting up with bad shaves, but I suspect that a bit of scratching doesn't do any harm.)