Oh God! What have I done?! Please Help!

Ok so I've been straight razor shaving for over a year now. I just recently got a new strop: a Straight Razor Designs Premium I Leather strop with Hard pressed wool felt on the second flap. It is an extremely beautiful strop! I also got some green chromium oxide spray.
So here's what happened. I followed the instructions and sprayed the chromium oxide on the inside of the felt flap and waited overnight for it to dry. The next day i did my first stropping with it. I did about 10-15 full passes on the chromium oxide felt, 25 passes on the regular felt, and about 50 on the leather side.
Now for some reason my razor cant even cut paper. That was the most miserable shaving experience I've ever had. It failed all the sharpness tests. What could i have done wrong to make this happen?
One thing i did notice was that the draw on the strop was very light; didn't even come close to my 30 degree Russian leather strop's heavy draw.
What do i do to fix this and/or make the strop work?

Welcome aboard,,,,,,
Don't sweat it,,, you've never seen my first strop & you don't want to.
I don't know what you did wrong, I don't use sprays or pastes,,,
Someone with a background in pasted strops will come along soon to help you,,,,
This too shall pass,,,,,

I use WAY less pressure with the CroX than I do normally - and I normally use almost none. Sounds like you just might be learning the new strop. I've read/learned that they take time to "break in".

Whether a strop is pasted or not it's the same principle. It's all about the pressure you use and the angle and with media added to the strop it becomes that much more important. You probably either used too much pressure or altered your stroke in a bad way.

I'd guess too much pressure and that you raised the spine while on the CrOx and rounded the edge off of the blade. It happens. A few passes on a 12k will bring it back. Or you can lay the pasted strop on a flat hard surface and try stropping the blade back on to it with about 10 travels.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Warchild281

Now for some reason my razor cant even cut paper. That was the most miserable shaving experience I've ever had. It failed all the sharpness tests. What could i have done wrong to make this happen?
One thing i did notice was that the draw on the strop was very light; didn't even come close to my 30 degree Russian leather strop's heavy draw.
What do i do to fix this and/or make the strop work?

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Sorry to hear about such a bad experience. :banghead:

I 'Think' what you did has been mentioned and that is that you have rolled/rounded the edge. If the reference to 'cutting paper' isn't just a figure of speech then you have compounded the problem.

At this point in time, I believe that re-honing is the only solution.

If you are on limited funds/PM me.

A year shaving with a straight, has your stropping ever failed before now? It does sound like a stropping issue, and if you test by cutting paper , well that does say something ,, might just need a few 12 k strokes or even more honing ,, who hones for you ? Or take up Cudarunner Roy can usually help the newbies out with getting an edge that is shave ready. Tc

Warchild just so you are comfortable... Cudarunner has honed for me in the past and he does great work. Highly recommend.

Cuda is a great guy and very helpful. BUT ,if I were you, I would look for someone close enough to teach you how to do it right yourself. I am not going to offer anybody up (not my place) but I am sure if they see this they will themselves.
Something else I would do (I am not advising you do) is try try again in the meantime.

Do not cut anything with that straight but the hairs on your chinney chin chin scrwewy wabbit :<0)

Maybe try taking a look at the edge with magnification to help you see the problem....I am pretty sure there is a pin test for a rolled edge as well. Regardless of what caused it I doubt you are going to fix a razor that won't cut paper on anything but a hone.

I concur, cudarunner is very top notch and will give you an incredible edge that is for sure. He just did two of mine and I am sending him two more as soon as I can get them in the mail. BTW Roy I am sending you two more to get done. :roflmao

I really can't answer your question, but i do have to ask whether you wiped your blade after the pasted strop? If not you may have also contaminated the others, we'll the other felt at least.

Maybe you need to look at your stropping technique. It may be slightly off and linen/felt, leather is more forgiving than Cr Ox,which would accentuate any problem and rapidly dull the blade.

Certainly sounds like a rolled egde
Also +1 don't cut anything but hair with your razor EVER

For an experiment you could touch up your razor, if it is not too bad, and go back to your old strop and note the difference if there is one. Then I would eliminate the Crox and go plain felt and leather. Down the line I would give the green stuff a ride.

50 strokes on cr ox is a little much isn't it?

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Originally Posted by cubancigar2000

50 strokes on cr ox is a little much isn't it?

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I do a solid 50 laps when my razor is fresh off the hone. After that I'll skip it all together unless the blade needs a touch up. At that point I'll use the CrOx until the edge is freshened up.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Warchild281

Ok so I've been straight razor shaving for over a year now. I just recently got a new strop: a Straight Razor Designs Premium I Leather strop with Hard pressed wool felt on the second flap. It is an extremely beautiful strop! I also got some green chromium oxide spray.
So here's what happened. I followed the instructions and sprayed the chromium oxide on the inside of the felt flap and waited overnight for it to dry. The next day i did my first stropping with it. I did about 10-15 full passes on the chromium oxide felt, 25 passes on the regular felt, and about 50 on the leather side.
Now for some reason my razor cant even cut paper. That was the most miserable shaving experience I've ever had. It failed all the sharpness tests. What could i have done wrong to make this happen?
One thing i did notice was that the draw on the strop was very light; didn't even come close to my 30 degree Russian leather strop's heavy draw.
What do i do to fix this and/or make the strop work?

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You say this strop doesn't grab like your Russian strop? Might need to be broken in. I found this information somewhere on the forum, but can't remember where exactly. I took some of my shave soap lather and coated the strop with it. Then I used 600 grit sand paper and roughed it up a bit. Not too much, just enough to lighten the color a bit. Then I rinsed it off, lathered it up again and took some 1000 grit wet or dry to it. The original recommendation was 800 grit, but I used what I had on hand. Once I was done with that, I rinsed it off and lathered it up, and used a glass bottle to work the lather into the strop. I repeated that a few times and rinsed the strop off.

That will dramatically change the way your strop grips the razor. As for your edge dulling, as others said it sounds a lot like bad form. Hold it tighter, use less pressure, make sure you don't roll the blade so the edge hits the fabric, and wipe your razor between each step.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Warchild281

One thing i did notice was that the draw on the strop was very light; didn't even come close to my 30 degree Russian leather strop's heavy draw.
What do i do to fix this and/or make the strop work?

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What is a 30 degree Russian leather strop ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Warchild281

Ok so I've been straight razor shaving for over a year now. I just recently got a new strop: a Straight Razor Designs Premium I Leather strop with Hard pressed wool felt on the second flap. It is an extremely beautiful strop! I also got some green chromium oxide spray.
So here's what happened. I followed the instructions and sprayed the chromium oxide on the inside of the felt flap and waited overnight for it to dry. The next day i did my first stropping with it. I did about 10-15 full passes on the chromium oxide felt, 25 passes on the regular felt, and about 50 on the leather side.
Now for some reason my razor cant even cut paper. That was the most miserable shaving experience I've ever had. It failed all the sharpness tests. What could i have done wrong to make this happen?
One thing i did notice was that the draw on the strop was very light; didn't even come close to my 30 degree Russian leather strop's heavy draw.
What do i do to fix this and/or make the strop work?

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My honest answer to you is that this happens occasionally to me and I don't know why.

What I can tell you is that I've done this close to five years and I'm still learning and still improving.

That's probably why retro shaving still interests me and I never get tired of it.

Warchild281,

The width of the edge on a striaght razor makes a flea's foreskin seem large - it is really easy to round off the edge when using abrasives on a compressible medium like felt. (I totally removed the edge on my razor when I first used 0.5 micron diamond on felt :().

For me, I use abrasives on a hard leather paddle strop, and as other posters have mentioned, use no pressure.

Have fun :)

Best regards

Russ