Thread: Rehabilitated or decapitated?

Stropping is the weakest part of my straight shaving routine. I have worked very hard to master it and to a large extent, have. Then after doing very well for a month or so ONE errant stroke causes the damage as pictured.

I have grown impatient with the pumice stone, because I don't think it even repairs nicks. For all the good it does me I might as well stick it in my ear.

So I had a wild hair today that I would get a Dremel with sandpaper attachment and that's what you see in the first picture. The second picture is after it was treated with Neatsfoot oil.

What drives me crazy beyond belief is that one hiccup and you will never have a perfectly flat strop again. And I am a compulsive hiccup artist.

The question is, will this strop as is do the job or do I have to replace the thing every &^%$ time this happens?

If it feels good through the blade when you're stropping I'd assume it is good. I'd also pay attention to any degrading of the edge after using the strop. May be just a cosmetic issue. If you can live with that and it doesn't negatively affect the razor I'd suspect you'll be alright.

Yea, hacked up my English bridal leather strop in a similar way, maybe not as much as the big one you have, and it is still very usable. Smoothed the spots with pumice, made certain all the grit from the pumice was gone, oiled the spots with Neats Foot Oil and she was good to go. Not an attractive looking strop today but sure gets the job done so you should be OK too.

Bob

yea, like jimmy said, as long as you can't feel it as you strop you should be OK. if you can then you have an issue.