Don't slice your strop in half

After more than 15 years of SR shaving, I've made one of my biggest mistakes.

I haven't nicked or cut a strop in over a decade and yesterday evening, I finished up a Heljestrand frameback on a Coticule, stropped it up nicely, was going to be a good shave.

I just finished stropping on my old Kanayama Cordovan strop when I had one of those enormous clumsy moments.

The razor slid out my hand, the strop caught it and sliced it halfway through. Arhg.

Razor's edge is messed up, but that can be fixed; my strop won't ever be the same. Cut halfway through right in the middle of the strop. Meh. My favorite strop too. Feels bad.

Don't do this.

Bummer! Sorry to hear this! I cut one of my best strops once. Fortunately it was at the top of the stroke.
I rubber cemented and sanded a bit. Not so bad and I still use it.
Very irritating to see the scar years later. I realized that all my misses and near misses were at the top, so I concentrate on the top as I strop.
The bottom seems automatic for me.
Sometimes we need to slow down I figure. .

I've never cut a strop, but I do acknowledge that it could happen at any time and try to keep that in mind.

Victor, Victor. Practically perfect in every way! :rofl2:

Such a shame, couldn't have been your new Kanayama. Accident happens when you become complacent.

Sorry to hear that happened to you.

Bob

I feel your pain. I put a good nick in one of mine a while ago and now I am very careful not to strop when distracted or tired.

Currently have 12 stitches in the fleshy part of my right (dominant) hand... will heal fine but currently my grip is shot. I won't be shaving with a straight for a bit, mainly because I'm concerned about the stropping... I can hold a straight fine to shave with, but the fine motor skills of rolling the razor on the strop make it not worth it to me to risk my strop.

Kind of funny I'm more worried about the strop than my face...but I know my face would heal...

Happened to me once. Managed to cut the loose bit out as it was in middle of the strop and the Eastern and Western edges were spared. So now it is no more than a moon-shaped dent.

I beat up several strops when I first started but so far in the last several years no issues, I think lots of times at least for me I get to complacent or comfortable if you call it and lose site of what I’m doing, I have one TM strop that I nicked on the finished edge but I was able to take a small nail file and dress it down and then recondition the whole strop and now after several years it’s barely noticeable.

My 3" English Bridal strop has been through the wars, it was my first strop and I feel sorry for the poor thing.
Saying that I repaired it successfully, sanded it a bit and rubbed it with a mix of neetsfoot and glycerin. The glycerin has slowed it down a lot.

I also have a 2 1/2" Buffalo strop. I have found, for me anyway that a narrower strop like 2 1/2" is much nicer to strop on and is much less likely to get nicked.

The only thing I feel is that my razor feels like it's being seriously stropped with my heavier Bridal, the Buffalo is very fast and my razor doesn't feel like it is being stropped into submission.

Fortunately, I understand that it doesn't matter what the draw is, it's just preference and they all strop the same. It's technique over leather, just feels more stroppy on a heavier draw even though it makes my wrist ache more.

Several years ago as I was preparing to shave I took one of my better strops, I think it was a Tony Miller and started stropping the razor as I had done a thousand times before and I realized I was stropping in the wrong direction meaning the razor in the wrong direction

I have a very light touch when I strop so the damage was "minimal". Why did I do that just that one time? Was I just not thinking?

In reality these things happen to everybody. How many tradesmen have serious accidents with tools they use every day. Ask anyone who carries a weapon every day as part of their job for many years if they ever had an "accidental discharge".

Quote:

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Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Several years ago as I was preparing to shave I took one of my better strops, I think it was a Tony Miller and started stropping the razor as I had done a thousand times before and I realized I was stropping in the wrong direction meaning the razor in the wrong direction

I have a very light touch when I strop so the damage was "minimal". Why did I do that just that one time? Was I just not thinking?

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Funny you say that.

I bought a really cheapo crap strop for about $20 from Amazon. I just wanted something I could coat with Crox.

I gave that cheap black strop a good coating of Crox and turned it green, I did put it on quite heavily so it took two days to dry.

A couple of days later i got out a beater, set the bevel and progressed to 12K.
I turned to my new Crox strop intending to finish on it but I suppose because i had been edge leading on the stones, I put my razor on the strop and without thinking did a complete edge leading lap. I shaved all my new Crox off.
The strop is still greenish and still works as a Crox strop but it doesn't look like I intended it to.