Originally Posted by
rickytimothy
I've been using my straight razor much more frequently lately. Some things I've observed:
-Unquestionably the razor gets unusably dull about 3/4 through the shave, it will start off quite smooth, but then pull hairs hard at that point.
-By the very end of the shave, the toe specifically gets so dull that I cannot clean up stray hairs at all, the razor will just glide over them harmlessly.
-Stropping mid-way through helped a lot.
Which leads naturally to some questions:
-Is stropping mid-shave risky? I have heard people say in the past that it risks chipping the razor considering the heat from water, but working in metallurgy this seems ridiculous.
-Does the dramatic decrease in sharpness throughout one shave sound like more of a sharpening problem, a shaving technique problem, or maybe just the result of coarse hair?