Hi peter & welcome to SRP. Sorry I'm late to the party, I was at my mothers yesterday celebrating her 89 birthday.
You will learn a lot starting in the Library & going from there. If you didn't cut the strop too bad which I doubt you did, you can sand that little bit out or if it has a small part sticking up, you can glue it back down using some super glue (CA) or what I like to use is rubber cement because it isn't hard like the CA.
Got any questions just ask. That's a nice Bismarck there! Here's a link that might interest you:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/begin...icipation.html
Good luck my friend.