Thread: Some worries....

when someone totally new (like me) is still learning his stropping technique and has already nicked the sides of his strop several times, must I worry about having to send my razor back to be rehoned? or can I just carry on?

Maybe not rehoned but a linen or paddle strop with crox would be of help. Can you feel any roughness at all with your thumb?

Small nicks I wouldnt worry about, but if you make a major mistake then it could affect the edge.

Does the razor still shave right? If it shaves fine then its Ok, but if theres any pulling or roughness to the shave then it might need touching up.

As far as my thumb goes I dont know how to do that. As far as how the shave goes I am so new that I have been only shaving the sideburn down to the jaw; as per the Newbie instructions....that was after getting my set late last week and attempting to shave my whole face. Whitch was a rough, bloody and painful experience. How do I get back the peace of mind that my razor is still the "shave-ready" instrument that it once was when I took it out of the box?

Do a search on the thumb pad test in tutorials

Just shave with it and your face will not lie.

Thanks for the thumb pad test suggestion. I looked it up on the wiki. I followed the instructions and it failed. I am pretty dissapointed because now i have to send it off for a honing when it was either never "proffesionally honed" by the vendor, or I ruined it while learning to strop. That would explain why razor doesn't slice through the hair like I've seen on the videos. I'll get out the Mach 3 until then...this will be frustrating and costly to have to re-hone repeatedly until technique is learned.

If you haven't already I would recommend practising your stropping technique with some thing other than a shave ready razor to develop the skills. Its better to make mistakes with something that can't be damaged or damage your strop. Some say a butter knife is good.

The thumb pad test is really used to gauge how the edge is progressing when you are honing a razor from dull to shave ready, and all it'll really tell you is whether a bevel is set or not.

Dont worry about the TPT or any of the other tests in the Wiki. The only test to see how shave ready a razor is is to shave with it. All the other tests help you probe an edge to see how its developing but they wont tell you how the razor shaves.

The best way to tell if the razor is Ok is to shave with it. If it pulls or doesnt remove hair then it needs to be honed. If it gives you a close comfortable shave then its good to go.

The reason I mentioned that is from nicking his stop. i'd hate to see him run a damaged blade down his face. My thought was he might be able to feel if the cutting edge was misaligned or chipped. It wasn't so much for keenness.