Thread: strop break in period and nuances.

so i got a big daddy from star shaving and there are somethings make it feel uncomfortable to strop on. maybe i am being a bit unfair since this is my new strop and in the past i had a russian shell certyfd that i really got used to. so here is my experience with the big daddy the first thing i noticed was the extreme draw compared to my russian shell strop to the point that i could not make a very smooth pass. the other nuance i found is that the strop seem to cup upwards so by the end of a stroke only the center of the blade is making contact which forces me to do the x pattern. so at the time i am not really happy neither mad, but i did buy the strop because it was slightly longer than the srd and because it is wider than my old certyfd strop. my questions are; is there something that i can do to slightly reduce the draw or will it just break in? can the cupping issue be fixed? can i accelerate the break in period?

please do let me know since before after honing or before a shave i used to be able to get my razors to pass the hht and now this strop has made me lose that.

I don't know about a lot of what you're asking, but one thing I did notice is that with my SRD 3" Black Latigo is that depending on how I have it hung, i.e. on a hook or on a loop attached to a door knob I would get cupping under certain circumstances.

When I have it on the hook, it's great.

The same is true with a loop attached to a doorknob, but the loop MUST come over the top of the doorknob and not be twisted.


I'll try and post some pics of this later so you can see what I mean.

I have a SS strop 2.5" that has a higher draw than my 3" Latigo. I prefer the SS strop do to the draw and no cupping.
The 3" Latigo I didn't care for the draw (to slick), and only noticed the cupping recently after slowing down my stropping and really looking at what was going on.
I changed where I hung the 3" and instead of pulling the strop tight, I let a little slack in it, then strop heal leading. The 3" strop doesn't seem to be cupped now, and even though I like a little more draw I'm growing accustom to using it. I seem to get better shaves with the Latigo.
Not sure what you can use to reduce the draw, other than to keep using it, I would think it would "dry out" from use. Otherwise you may want to change how or where you hang it and just keep using it until you get use to the feel of it.

Giving the strop some slack along with a couple of brush strokes with some tallow soap have alleviated my problems. I just followed the suggestion on the instruction and voila.

Originally Posted by rocarule

so i got a big daddy from star shaving and there are somethings make it feel uncomfortable to strop on. maybe i am being a bit unfair since this is my new strop and in the past i had a russian shell certyfd that i really got used to. so here is my experience with the big daddy the first thing i noticed was the extreme draw compared to my russian shell strop to the point that i could not make a very smooth pass. the other nuance i found is that the strop seem to cup upwards so by the end of a stroke only the center of the blade is making contact which forces me to do the x pattern. so at the time i am not really happy neither mad, but i did buy the strop because it was slightly longer than the srd and because it is wider than my old certyfd strop. my questions are; is there something that i can do to slightly reduce the draw or will it just break in? can the cupping issue be fixed? can i accelerate the break in period?

please do let me know since before after honing or before a shave i used to be able to get my razors to pass the hht and now this strop has made me lose that.

I just got the big daddy today and stropped for the 1st time with it. The strop feels quality. It is slightly stiff, but I'm sure it will break in a little bit. I used my hand to heat it up several times.

I did not experience the cupping effect which you experienced, but I'm looking forward to posts on the topic