Thread: Hello from Chicago

Hey everyone, and thanks to the multitude of authors I've taken such valuable information from. I recieved my Dovo BQ from SRD not too long ago (2 weeks?) and I'm on my fourth shave - no cuts thusfar. I do however think I may have stropped wrong, as each shave after the second has gotten a little rougher... ah well, I'll be in the market for a hone soon (hopefully I won't compound whatever I did on the strop).

Welcome,

Sounds like you're off to a good start.

Can you describe your stropping process?

Have fun.

SRD Latigo Strop 3 inch wide.
Dovo BQ
No pastes.

Setup is typical, it's hooked to a towel rack and the actual stropping happens at just above my hip.
I get the surface of the strop warm with my hand and pull the handle down and away from the towel rack to make it taut.
I open the razor fully, and grip it firmly between thumb and pointer, elbow locked, in position over the strop.
I place the straight on it's spine, edge-up, and start moving away from myself while at the same time rotating the blade so that it lightly touches the leather (blade towards me, spine away).
Near the end I flip with my wrist, on the spine, and repeat, this time towards myself and with the spine leading.

-I hear a slight zipping / hissing noise, I feel no tug, and occasionally I notice small lines in the strop that occur near the heel.
-If I strop all the way to the top of the leather, I notice that the leather actually has a dip in the center, and so I have stayed to the lower two-thirds of the stop.
-Occasionally I do an x-pattern just for practice.

I hope this is adequate, thanks for taking the time to help.

So long as you are holding the strop taught, but not so tight that your arm cramps, a little give in the strop is fine. You can use a little pressure, but you don't want to bear down and then lift up at the end of your strokes. 40-60 strokes should get the job done. You may want to try upwards of 100 strokes right now and see if any difference in how the shave feels.

Have fun.

100! That sounds great. I really enjoy stropping, and perfect practice makes perfect (or something).
I'll post here if I find that the increase in passes does the trick.
Thanks for the advice.