Thread: I destroyed my brand new strop in 3 weeks with nicks

Only you can know how you did it. Surely you felt each of those knicks.

When learning to strop, its best to take things slow and train your muscle memory the proper motions. Once those motions are engrained, speed will come naturally.

You really want to be careful about the flip. The stropping stroke itself should be swift, but slow down and flip very consciously, then do another swift stroke. As you are ending each stroke, the edge of the razor should be starting to lift off the strop, and you should lay the edge down slightly after you have begun the next stroke.

I would also agree that you should repair this strop. No use in buying another one until you know you aren't going to cut it to shreds.

Originally Posted by markevens

Only you can know how you did it. Surely you felt each of those knicks.

When learning to strop, its best to take things slow and train your muscle memory the proper motions. Once those motions are engrained, speed will come naturally.

You really want to be careful about the flip. The stropping stroke itself should be swift, but slow down and flip very consciously, then do another swift stroke. As you are ending each stroke, the edge of the razor should be starting to lift off the strop, and you should lay the edge down slightly after you have begun the next stroke.

I would also agree that you should repair this strop. No use in buying another one until you know you aren't going to cut it to shreds.

I did alot of damage to my first strop too and never felt a single nick I put into it. Didn't know they were ther till I was done stropping and took a good look at it.

To the op, you have alot of nicks but none of them appear to be real bad. You should be able to sand them right our and your strop will work (not look) good as new. That's what I did, strop works just fine, just ain't pretty.