Thread: My first straight shave

Gentlemen:

I finally got to use my new razor and paddle strop from Tony Miller

Overall, it went smoothly. Here are my issues:

1. I understand while stropping, the spine of the blade should rest on the stop. When I did that, the blade didn't touch the strop, I had to lift the spine a bit and then got a nice sound. I stopped because I didn't want to damage the blade.

2. Sides of face went great! Even used both hands.

3. Had great difficulty getting the upper lip and chin area. I got 2 small cuts and pulled a couple of hairs. Razor kept getting caught in the beard. I assume it's either my angle or I messed up the blade stropping.

Questions:

1. How do you get that lip area (unfortunately, Lynn's DVD didn't help me too much on the lip. I could get the 1st pass with the grain but against it was a little tough and I had to finish with my Fusion

2. Same question only on the chin area. I seemed to get decent results holding it at a 90 degree angle but I don't think that should be proper.

Results of first shave:

Near BBS on sides and neck. Troubled on the lip and chin but overall a great experience and I will definitely be back for more

Originally Posted by steve

Gentlemen:

I finally got to use my new razor and paddle strop from Tony Miller

Overall, it went smoothly. Here are my issues:

1. I understand while stropping, the spine of the blade should rest on the stop. When I did that, the blade didn't touch the strop, I had to lift the spine a bit and then got a nice sound. I stopped because I didn't want to damage the blade.

2. Sides of face went great! Even used both hands.

3. Had great difficulty getting the upper lip and chin area. I got 2 small cuts and pulled a couple of hairs. Razor kept getting caught in the beard. I assume it's either my angle or I messed up the blade stropping.

Questions:

1. How do you get that lip area (unfortunately, Lynn's DVD didn't help me too much on the lip. I could get the 1st pass with the grain but against it was a little tough and I had to finish with my Fusion

2. Same question only on the chin area. I seemed to get decent results holding it at a 90 degree angle but I don't think that should be proper.

Results of first shave:

Near BBS on sides and neck. Troubled on the lip and chin but overall a great experience and I will definitely be back for more

Here is what I do with the upper lip. I hold it taunt with my teeth and while holding the blade with both hands slowly go against the grain. Since I have been doing this no need to touch up with a mock3.

The chin is more of trial and error you will get it eventually.

1 - lip: using my right hand under my nose on the 1/2 of the lip to the right, i use the middle of the blade under the nose. YES, you have to increase the angle here to closer to 90 to get right up under the nose, i use the heel of the blade as i start going out to the right of the lip from under the nose. on the left 1/2 of my lip i use my left hand.. however i do this as kind of an angle movement like " \" as much as i can using the tip of the blade. the remaining tid bit up under the nose on the left 1/2 i get just like the right 1/2 by increasing the angle to more horizontal and getting it up under there.

2: chin: my chin i do all right handed exactly the same motion and angle as i do my right cheek. stretch your chin down with your jaw while your bottom lip is up over your bottom teeth so that it creates a very flat and elongated stretch. easy shave there.. HOWEVER your skin is very thin there, so be gentle or you will get red/small cut if you push too hard

3: stropping: good lord sonny, don't be raising that spine up off the strop or you will definitely be dulling (rounding) the edge. pull the strop tight, this could be problem #1... pull it tight. without moving just lay your razor on the strop and look at it. you will see that it rests on its spine which is elevated due to the thickness and the edge also rests on the strop. this is what should happen and what it should look like while you are stropping. perhaps you are pushing down too hard on the razor on the spine which inturn raises the edge up off the strop. while a little little bit of pressure isn't a problem (people differ here and you will learn what works best for you) ..while learning to strop, you should use NO pressure. simply lay it down, and work on the motion, the razor flip on the spine while keeping the razor laying flat flat on the strop. the pressure you put down on the razor to keep it laying flattly on the strop should be even and in the middle. not spine or edge heavy.

~J

Originally Posted by steve

1. I understand while stropping, the spine of the blade should rest on the stop. When I did that, the blade didn't touch the strop, I had to lift the spine a bit and then got a nice sound. I stopped because I didn't want to damage the blade.

Why didn't the edge touch the strop? Was something in the way? You shouldn't have to lift the spine to get the edge to touch unless the blade is convex ground (and those are extremely rare, and none are currently being made by dovo).

Originally Posted by steve

3. Had great difficulty getting the upper lip and chin area. I got 2 small cuts and pulled a couple of hairs. Razor kept getting caught in the beard. I assume it's either my angle or I messed up the blade stropping.

As for the razor getting caught in the beard, that's either deficient prep, wrong angle, or the nonstandard stropping did something funny to the edge.

Originally Posted by steve

1. How do you get that lip area (unfortunately, Lynn's DVD didn't help me too much on the lip. I could get the 1st pass with the grain but against it was a little tough and I had to finish with my Fusion

I shave the upper lip by tightening it like Rich, then coming in from the sides on the first pass - this is a cross-grain cut on me but it works well. My upper lip rarely needs a second pass, although sometimes the lower edge of the moustache area gets another pass from the corner of the mouth up towards the corner of my eye (my beard kind of curls a bit in that area, so the first pass doesn't always get it as clean as I like). The middle part of my upper lip (the frustrum?) I shave kind of diagonally down, and the bit just under my nose I shave using the coup de maitre, which is a stroke where you press the blade flat against the nose and then rotate the edge forward while sliding the razor down. It's scary-looking, and tricky the first few times, but it's not that bad once you learn it.

Originally Posted by steve

2. Same question only on the chin area. I seemed to get decent results holding it at a 90 degree angle but I don't think that should be proper.

This one is just gonna take some experimentation. I shave my chin by coming at it from one side on the first pass, then the other side on the second pass. The chin is usually one of the last places that guys master.

Originally Posted by steve

Results of first shave:

Near BBS on sides and neck. Troubled on the lip and chin but overall a great experience and I will definitely be back for more

Well that's the important bit. As long as survive your first shave without major loss of blood you should consider it a success.

Well, the blade should be just right. It's a Dovo I purchased from Tony and I know he had the edge in proper condition so I am confident it's my lack of experience. I'm using the paddle strop and I was holding it with the top down on the sink ledge so the razor edge not touching the strop may be because I held it funny. I think it might be worth the effort to lay the paddle flat and rest the razor on it to see what it looks like. I know I need to get used to holding a razor too.

Thanks everyone for the advice. I hope I didn't damage the blade too much by my poor stropping, as soon as I realized it wasn't going well, I stopped. We'll see in 2 days.

Originally Posted by steve

I hope I didn't damage the blade too much by my poor stropping, as soon as I realized it wasn't going well, I stopped. We'll see in 2 days.

We have all been there. Take it slow and enjoy. You will soon become as addicted as the rest of us.

Steve,

It sounds like you were just holding the razor edge up off the paddle. That would be easy to do with the paddle sloping away from you. You just needed to tilt the edge down a bit so it makes contact. Until you get more experience, laying the paddle flat while you strop is probably a good idea.

If that's what you did, I'm sure you didn't harm the edge. Just take it slow and enjoy the process.

Josh

OK, I tried to strop again to see what I was doing wrong and it looks like I had the shaft on the paddle strop, thus raising the blade edge off the strop. If I keep it off the strop, the blade edge and spine rest flat as it should. Now I just need to keep my hand steady.

Thanks everyone for the help

Just keep at it. Soon enough you won't even have to think about it. Kinda like driving stick.

Well, I worked on my technique and I THINK its a little better but certainly needs some more work. My shave tonight was much worse than the first. the blade is definately getting stuck in the chin and lip whiskers. I can get the with the grain pass OK but the against the grain is where it is getting stuck and I'm really getting cut up. I don't know whether that's me or the blade being dulled from my improper stropping. I stropped right before shaving too.

I am learning just how heavy a hand I have. I have to keep reminding myself to ease up on the pressure of the blade on my face.

Let's see, depress clutch - give it the gas - ease off the clutch......grind, stall