Thread: Howdy from Montana.

Hi and welcome aboard. As far as I can tell the biggest issue is likely your stropping. That said poor stropping on crox just makes it much worse as you are now stropping poorly on abrasive.

Some stropping issues I have seen with new guys is lifting the spine or simply not stropping enough. You would want to do at least 25 linen and 50 leather for maintenance. As yours is not shaving properly I would move up to 100 linen and 100 leather and see if that helps.

Larry, first let's try to determine if you rolled the edge while stropping.
Take a cotton ball, stretch it out a bit and run it down the blade from the spine to the edge. Go up and down both sides of the blade checking the whole edge. What you are looking to see if the cotton catches and snags anywhere. If it does then the edge is rolled and bent to one side. If you find this, don't shave with it.
If it were me I'd send it back to Lynn for your free honing. PM him and ask him what he found.
If you find that the edge is rolled then we have to analyze and work on your stropping.
Feel free to PM any of us for help. That's why we are here.
Let us know what you find. If it's nothing, then the blade should definately be looked at.

Pete <:-}

Welcome to SRP!!!
A lot of great folks and info here, as you've seen. Check k out the library

I'd have to agree, it's your stropping. This is an important part of SR shaving and is not too difficult to do. But do it right and an edge can go for a very long time.

HERE

is Lynns YouTube of how to strop your razor. I hope that will help you to see where you possibly are not doing the right thing

Enjoy and have fun!!!

Pete, thank you for your advice. I have done as you as you suggested, but did not find any burrs or turned edge that pulled on the thin cotton fibers. I am thinking about trying what eddy79 has suggested, only I am taking the strop off the wall and placing it on a flat surface to ensure I keep it flat. I will go very deliberate with each stroke maintaining both the edge and the spine stay in contact with the strop at all time. eddy79 speaks of a linen strop, I did not purchase one, but rather a hard felt secondary strop. Is it advised that I pickup and use a linen strop? Would this strop be different than the "webbing strop"? Is it possible to purchase just a "linen" strop as opposed to one combined with a leather primary strop?
Larry

Larry, if the cotton didn't snag anywhere then it's quite possible that the apex of the bevel has been roughed up from the crox and is no longer perfectly straight. It may now be full of divots and look like a serrated knife.
You can try the flat stropping, and I hope that it works, but in the end I think that the edge needs to be looked at under magnification.

Pete <:-}

Originally Posted by mtwoodwrkr

gssixgun, that sounds great to me, if we are close enough. I live in the SouthWest Montana area between Deer Lodge and Butte, just off the I-90 corridor.
Larry

I will be in Butte, MT Tuesday evening for a Wednesday delivery. I'm agreeable to holding over a few hours Wednesday if you want to meet. Got my travel kit with me too. PM me if you're interested.

One thing that really can effect stropping is strop tension. It should be taught but not tight, you don't want your arm to be tired from holding your strop. Second not slack, slack can kill an edge quickly. There are guys that can strop on a slack strop but that is years of doing so. Eddy has given you some great advice, laying your strop on a flat surface will help tremendously taking almost all variable out. What really helped me was hearing the term "bury the spine". By no means dig the spine into the strop or again you will kill the edge, bury the edge thought giving a slight deflection to the strop with each stroke. I hope you enjoy your journey, there is a lot to learn but in the end it will all come together and be very rewarding

PS, I forgot to add, listen to the sound that is made when stropping. Put just the spine of your razor on the strop so the edge is straight in the air, no flipping or anything. Perform a stropping motion, notice how quiet it is? Now lay the entire blade down as you would to strop normally and make a stropping motion, notice the sound it makes? Almost like zip,zip,zip,zip. This will give you an idea when you are stropping if you are lifting the edge or doing something that is not getting the entire blade in contact. Hope this helps

Originally Posted by mtwoodwrkr

Mike,
I am thinking maybe I should lay the strop on a flat surface and use it that way until I get the hang of it, then return to using it as it hangs from the wall.
Larry

I think you have a very good idea there about laying the strop on a flat surface while you get used to it. Your razor has a straight edge and the edge and spine are parallel lines so it should work just right if you lay the strop on a flat surface.

So lay the strop on a flat surface, strop the razor on the treated side until it is really sharp again (might be 100 strokes or more depending on the edge), then on the plain leather side a bunch. Go slow, keep everything aligned, don't exert much downwards pressure, take your time, don't lift the spine off the leather. It's going to take a while, settle in and you can learn to use each hand in turn while you're at it.

Then I bet you'll be enjoying nice shaves again, and you can decide whether you want to hang the strop again once you get really comfortable with what you're doing.

I'd like to add speed into this.
Being new, your stropping is probably somewhat slow on the leather. A certain amount of speed is needed to warm the edge thru friction, and aids in realignment of the edge after shaving. Just a thought.

Wow... There is a wealth of advice already here! All that is really left to say is... Welcome to SRP!!

About the only thing I would suggest on top of all this great advice is to change only one thing at a time so you know if it was/was not effective. True frustration is found at the end of a handful of changes after which you get the result you were looking for but now have no clue as to which thing fixed it. :/

My bet is the CRoX as well... Get Standard Stropping down then give micro-abrasives a shot.

Shawn
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