Thread: Help... I think I stropped my razor dull!

Well got a new Illinois #827 strop.

I'd already shaved 4x with a newly honed razor. (Thanks, GSSIXGUN )

I stropped my razor on the linen side about 20x and then the Russian leather side 20x.
I could see that the edge was getting polished.

But, when I tried shaving my arm hair it would cut the hair.
Then I tried the hanging hair trick... nope!

I figured... well it cuts my arm hair, I'll give it a try.

Man! Did it pull!

So, that's why I think I just stopped my razor dull.

Any suggestions?

By the way I just ordered Lynn's DVD

Suggestion 1: Don't use the hanging hair test unless you're honing. It's mainly an indicator for the honer and will only add confusion for learning shavers.

Suggestion 2: Strop again. Don't go to fast, turn the razor on the spine, don't put too much pressure on it as you strop. Keep even strokes, and keep them calm. BUT: try doing 20-30 strokes on the canvas and 30-50 on the leather side. Shave again, see if it improved.

Suggestion 3: Another possibility is that it may have nothing to do with your stropping. Perhaps your lather was too dry. I've had some problems with that and noticed it makes the shave feel rough. Pay attention to the consistency of the lather, it might have something to do with it.

When shaving, keep the spine of the razor as close to your skin as possible without it actually touching your skin. Sometimes a shallow angle of attack will improve the shave.

Jerry
____

Lynn made a good stropping video recently. He uses both sides of a hanging strop and explains as he goes. Also AFdavis video, and others are great. They are the video section of the forum.

Watch those, and your DVD, then follow pithor's advice above. Don't try too hard to shave your whole face, and finish with another razor.

Play around like that for a while. If after a while, the blade is truly dull, you can pm me and I will hone it for you free.

Michael

That's great advice, just remember tighten up on the strop, keep it flat on the leather/linen go deliberatly, fast will come later on, learn to "Twirl" the razor between you finger at just the rigth time, use all five fingers to twirl it!!
The rest come's with lot and lots of practice.
Welcome the the Str8 hobby, you'll love it, we all do!

tinkersd

I really can't see stropping the razor dull after 20 laps, especially if gssixgun just honed it with all of his experience! I'm thinking it's a blade angle problem. When I first started stropping, I made tons of mistakes, but my blades were still sharp enough to shave with. Also, I don't believe in them hair tests. I've cut my arm hair but failed the HHT as well as you, but shaved my face just fine. This is what leads me to believe your angle of attack might be incorrect. I own the same strop, and I do 30 laps on the linen, and 60 laps on the leather.

Whether you can save the edge by restropping depends on what you did on the strop that created the issue. Can you describe exactly what you did? Were you making sure the spine stayed in contact with the strop the whole time, for example, or were you lifting the razor off the strop at each end? It sounds to me, based on the information you have provided and a goodly amount of conjecture on my part, that you may have rounded/folded the edge.

If that's the case you might be able to strop it back using careful and correct stropping technique, but it depends how bad the issue is.

James.

I knew I had a great knowledge pool to drink from!

Thanks to all.

I will follow the stropping instructions and let's see what happends.

I have shaved with this razor several times and didn't have any problems (no pulling).

So, it must be my stropping... practice, practice, practice.
Slow delibrate practice...............

Originally Posted by 2005xfr

I knew I had a great knowledge pool to drink from!

Thanks to all.

I will follow the stropping instructions and let's see what happends.

I have shaved with this razor several times and didn't have any problems (no pulling).

So, it must be my stropping... practice, practice, practice.
Slow delibrate practice...............

Good Luck!!

I might be out on left field here, but I found stropping slowly to be just about useless for me. As I got better and got to the point where I could strop quickly, I found that stropping was actually helpful. Maybe I just learnt how to strop properly by the time I got quick lol?

How did it turn out for you?

We did an experiment (more an observational study, really) a while back on the speed of stropping and how that equated to the shave. Admittedly there were only two of us and the observations were very qualitative in nature, but one of us was AFDavis so I think that adds some weight to it!

In any event, we found that there seemed to be a minimum speed below which stropping is fairly ineffectual. However, this speed was surprisingly slow - cannot remember exactly what it was now but I seem to recall it was slower than one would reasonably expect a beginner to be able to achieve, other things being equal. On the other end of the scale, it appeared that there was a maximum speed beyond which the edge/shave did not appear to be appreciably better. This maximum speed was not as fast as some people might expect it to be - again, I cannot recall exact details but I think Alan suggested something in the order of one stroke per second, or thereabouts.

Anyway, the point is that I *think* (suspect, conjecture, hypothesise, whatever...) speed does not play a major role in good stropping per se. My theory is that speed (that is, speed without killing the strop! ) can be indicative of a better stropping technique and it is this stropping technique that matters in terms of stropping efficacy. In other words, speed may indicate you have your technique going well but the converse is definitely not true: good technique does not necessarily mean you're a fast stropper.

So what I am trying to say in my typically long-winded way is that you should concentrate on your stropping technique and not on the speed. Technique will eventually drive speed increases, but speed in and of itself will not improve the edges off the strop.

James.