Thread: Beginners mistakes

Good afternoon all,

Just started SRing last week and I've been reading about a lot of beginners trash their strops. In your experience or in talking to others what are the common mistakes use beginners make when using the strop?

Thanks!

Jer

Going too fast or not getting the timing of the flip correctly. I have a several small cuts on the edge of my strop from mistimed flips.

Have you seen the Stroptober thread? I found it really helpful when I started out.

Poor stropping usually occurs when someone lifts the spine of the razor, digs a corner or going in the wrong direction. If you heed the warnings, go slooooooooooow at first (it's not a race to be as fast as gssixgun, I'm about 1/4 to 1/8 of his speed), if something feels wrong at all lift the edge and roll onto the spine. Just practice with a butter knife for the stroke and only flipping over the spine of the razor, then combine the two with the razor. Be sure to have the edge and spine on the strop evenly, some have a tendency to dig in with the edge of the blade. There's also alot of talk about pressure. In essence, too much can be bad and too little can be over come with extra stropping. Always err on the light side at first.

Focus. I can still use my first strop but it has battle scars. Timing, flipping, pressure all play a part when you know what your doing. Focus or lack of is how I nicked and cut mine.

I guess you can tell most of it revolves around speed, if you go slow and pay attention you will be fine. I,m still not fast but I aint cut no strops yet either. I'd rather improve my edge slowk than cut my strop or roll my edge going fast, once you really learn how to strop( and this will take time ) you will improve your edges and strop damage will go away. Stropping is the most important aspect of maintenance, you don't even need to know how to hone once you got the stropping down pat cause your edges will last a long time,, A paddle strop helps in the beginning or just lay your strop on the table edge to learn the motion without learning tension. Or just go ahead with the hanging strop

Thanks guy! Thinking about getting some Veg tanned strips from local leather dealer and making a paddle strop this week. I'm looking at a Tony Miller "Plain Chocolate". I'm waiting for him to post some for sale.

Originally Posted by MedicineMan

Thanks guy! Thinking about getting some Veg tanned strips from local leather dealer and making a paddle strop this week. I'm looking at a Tony Miller "Plain Chocolate". I'm waiting for him to post some for sale.

Another thing to watch for stropping is:
The shoulder by the tang may be very sharp from honing the edge of the blade. That will nick the near side of your strop. The other end at the toe where the spine has been worn can also scratch the strop in a diagonal pattern even when stropping properly.
If those areas feel the least bit sharp, round them over a bit.
~Richard

Question. How do I visually or other wise identify a rolled edge

Well, you can feel it and you can see it.

Get in the habit of calibrating your thumb to test an edge.

You do so by lightly pressing the pad of the thumb on the edge of the razor or any sharp object. This is the Thumb Pad Test (TPT). It is a quick and valuable test and worth learning.

It may take a while to feel the difference, but if you test many sharp objects, you can get very good at quantifying sharpness. Some wet the thumb for more sensitivity, whatever works.

If the edge is sharp, you will feel the edge cut into the first layer of skin, it will feel sticky, if you move the thumb from side to side it will stick. If it slips, the edge is not sharp. Or may be rolled if it was sharp.

To test for a rolled edge, lightly brush the edge with the thumb pad, from the side, up away from the edge. If the edge is rolled one side will slip the other will snag. If you don’t feel comfortable with this use a QTip, any chip or rolled edge will snag the cotton tip.

The other way is to look at the edge with magnification, if you use enough power, you can easily see the edge rolled over in one direction.

The third way is to lightly slide a needle, pin or toothpick from the back of the bevel to the edge. A rolled edge will snag the object, use light pressure.

Here is a good video of checking for chips and a sharp fully meeting bevels and a rolled edge

with a pin. Checking for sharpness.

Here is a photo of rolled edge.

One other thing about a rolled edge is that the edge, the actual edge is very, very thin. We cannot see it with the naked eye and even with less than, 100X magnification.

So, if the edge rolls, usually from lifting the spine. If you continue to strop the edge will break off and the pin test will not catch the roll. You now have a chipped edge.

You can detect it with a QTip, it will snag the cotton fibers or you will see it by looking down on the edge and from the side if you have enough magnification, at least 60X.

For either the rolled or lightly chipped edge, usually jointing the edge on a high grit stone to straighten the edge, the cutting edge can be brought back by honing, on the high grit stone and getting the bevels to meet again. A full bevel re-set is not generally needed.