I think I know about what my problem is but let me run it by here to see if there are other ideas...

Just got my four-sided pasting strop from Tony Miller and applied the four different pastes. Since it has been a while since I got my Double Arrow I thought I'd tune it up with 10 or so laps on the 0.5 then 15 or so on the 0.25, leaving the 3.0 and the 1.0 out of the picture for now. I then stropped on plain leather (a paddle strop) about 100 times and shaved. I did 100 laps because the paddle strop is so small and I figured that would be about the equivalent of no more than half as many on a hanging strop.

Hey -- all that seemed to have made an improvement -- until I "turned the other cheek", switched hands, and shaved with the blade turned to the opposite side -- pretty rough.

Could it be that ...

  1. my left hand is just clumsier than my right and the newly-sharpened blade brought out the difference.
  2. I stropped poorly somewhere along the line. Perhaps my technique is off when going in one direction or the other.

Any other thoughts? Does one of the above seem like a slam dunk answer? I think number 2 is my best guess.