Thread: Can you damage your edge by stropping?

Stropping is a very important element of straight razor shaving. As others have suggested, check Shams video to see how its done.

You should aim to keep the pressure light, flip on the spine and keep good even contact with the strop the whole stroke.

In terms of stropping an edge back to life, it really depends on how badly you rolled it, if indeed you did at all. If it was just a small lift, you can try doing 100 strokes or something and see if that brings it back. If it was a more major slip up, you'll probably find that stropping wont bring it back and then you'll need to have the razor honed.

Good luck and keep us posted!

Originally Posted by Ryan82

It sounds like it could just be a case of rookie stropping technique. You said that the edge "went south", but how badly? Usually a newb is happy with their stropping if they can eck out a somewhat comfortable shave, all the while their stropping is still sub-par or downright poor. I'm not meaning to insult the OP or newbies in general, but they usually think their stropping technique is better than it really is. After straight razor shaving for a year or more you will realize how far you've come and how better the quality of your shaves are.

It's all part of the learning curve. Keep at it and don't let this discourage you.

I want to stress that the edge 'went south' only very slightly. Maybe I'm being too much of a perfectionist here, but all I'm saying is that I can get a razor back newly honed (from some very good people, I might add) and get a REALLY SMOOTH shave. Incredible shave. Beginning with the next shave or the 3rd, it just loses a bit of that smoothness. It is still sharp as heck and shaves really well, but it's just a little bit off - it's just never like that first shave.

Again, I realize that my stroping technique could be better, but at the same time, I will maintain that on balance, it's not too bad. I mean I can tell what's going right and what happens when you hit a clam. For me, that means an occasional stroke where I might strop more on spine than edge (or, I should say spine + edge) once or twice out of 50+ laps. There are no dingers on the edge, no more nicked leather, etc. I did see Sham's video previously, btw.

At this point, it's coming together. Haven't used a DE for 2+ months. Get very good shaves with no problems. I'm just finding out more about the subtleties involved with this all the time and yes, it takes time, I know.

Originally Posted by Stubear

Stropping is a very important element of straight razor shaving. As others have suggested, check Shams video to see how its done.

You should aim to keep the pressure light, flip on the spine and keep good even contact with the strop the whole stroke.

In terms of stropping an edge back to life, it really depends on how badly you rolled it, if indeed you did at all. If it was just a small lift, you can try doing 100 strokes or something and see if that brings it back. If it was a more major slip up, you'll probably find that stropping wont bring it back and then you'll need to have the razor honed.

Good luck and keep us posted!

I guess the point I'm interested in is this: if a 'small lift' is all it takes to degrade the edge and kill the smoothness of a shave, well there must be one heckuva lot of folks out there (myself included) shaving with less than optimum edges. That's not to say that a very good shave isn't possible, but that perfect edge must be the exception rather than the rule for new folks. [/perfectionist]

Thanks all for the input. Good food for thought.

Maybe I should clarify what I meant there.

If you happen to lift the spine off the strop once by a millimetre or two, its no biggy. In fact you may not even notice you did it. Thats not to say keep doing it, but this probably wont roll your edge.

If you lift it off by more than that so the angle is more acute, you might degrade the edge some, but you can probably get it back by stropping. If not, then it'll need honing.

If you're consistently lifting the spine off the strop and scuffing the edge up, then you'll dull the razor pretty fast and it'll need to be honed.

Apologies, I may have given the impression there that as soon as you lift the spine, the razor goes dull, and its not that severe..! Consistently lifting the spine or one major scuff might do it though.

If it shaved pretty good when you finished your shave and then stropped it and it got notably worse, you can bet your last dollar that you did something bad to the edge during stropping.

In my opinion, the most important rule of all far and away is that unless you are shaving, the blade of a razor should never touch anything that the spine isn't touching first, be it strop or hone. Spine MUST touch before the blade does. If you never break that rule, the rest will all work itself out for you, in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Stubear

Maybe I should clarify what I meant there.

If you happen to lift the spine off the strop once by a millimetre or two, its no biggy. In fact you may not even notice you did it. Thats not to say keep doing it, but this probably wont roll your edge.

If you lift it off by more than that so the angle is more acute, you might degrade the edge some, but you can probably get it back by stropping. If not, then it'll need honing.

If you're consistently lifting the spine off the strop and scuffing the edge up, then you'll dull the razor pretty fast and it'll need to be honed.

Apologies, I may have given the impression there that as soon as you lift the spine, the razor goes dull, and its not that severe..! Consistently lifting the spine or one major scuff might do it though.

I hear what you're saying. I guess I am guilty of lifting the spine occasionally enough to dull the edge. I'll definately have to watch it. I do suspect it's probably more of a problem than people realize, though.

Hey - no apology necessary at all. I really appreciate all the input.

Originally Posted by Woodash

I want to stress that the edge 'went south' only very slightly. Maybe I'm being too much of a perfectionist here, but all I'm saying is that I can get a razor back newly honed (from some very good people, I might add) and get a REALLY SMOOTH shave. Incredible shave. Beginning with the next shave or the 3rd, it just loses a bit of that smoothness. It is still sharp as heck and shaves really well, but it's just a little bit off - it's just never like that first shave.

Again, I realize that my stroping technique could be better, but at the same time, I will maintain that on balance, it's not too bad.

Woodash,

Judging from your description I would have to guess that the edge isn't rolled. Usually a rolled edge will provide a nasty shave, if you can even shave with it at all. It's more likely a combination of the aforementioned stropping skills and shaving technique. Many members may not realize just how harsh whiskers can be on a razor's edge. Combine that with newbie shaving technique and voila - short edge longevity. Don't worry, we've all been there, as you have to start somewhere.

Just an update, FWIW.

OK - I get it. I went back and revisited some stropping info and videos, etc. and I believe I improved my technique a lot. One of the things that 'clicked' for me was holding the strop tighter, and holding the razor even lighter against the strop. I guess this prevented the strop from deflecting downward and possibly around the edge. Something....

I touched up one razor with barber hone and Cr2O3, and another with barber hone followed by coticle with water. Both were stropped with considerable care. Great shaves on both - as good as I've had; seems like I got back the smoothness that I was missing on both of them.

Lesson learned...learning. Thanks all for the input.

Congrats Woodash! I knew you could do it

Once you get a good grip on stropping basics you'll start experimenting with other factors such as when to and when not to use additional pressure, deflection and the such. Deflection by itself isn't a horrible concept; the muscle memory has to be finely tuned and the blade must be moving BEFORE the edge hits the leather. But don't worry about this stuff, the time will come.

cheers,

Ryan

Thanks Ryan! I really appreciate it. I guess for me, I have to learn (the hard way) what not to do before I get it right, but at least I now have a much better tactile sense of stropping. I do believe I can keep up with the razor maintenance much better now. Feels good.

Congrats! Learning this stuff is all part of the fun of it.