They arrived last Thursday, but work kept me too busy to take the pics. Here they are now:
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The background for the above is some vegetable tanned leather. A trip to the local Tandy Leather store provided some D rings and Chicago Screws for making some of my own strops. That should let me practice a bit for destroying the nice one. And, I can add some paste to one of them.
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As mentioned for the above photo, it's good to not destroy a nice strop. It's good to not destroy my face either. Some electrical tape folded over the sharp edge will let me get used to handling the razor and practice scraping off lather without risking my face in the process. Once the lather scrapes smoothly and evenly off, I can remove the tape and try it for real. Doing these practice passes at the start of my next few DE shaves should help me start to build the muscle memory so I'm not guessing as much once the blade is exposed.
Tim