Thread: Obviously more ways to fail than to Succeed

It sounds like stropping can be one of the hardest things to be successful at. I keep watching more and more videos, and there does not seem to be much consistency. Somewhat frustrated with that. I so want to be able to keep nice edges. I get awesome edges from Rick Boone. He is meticulous and his edges are high quality. I just need to be able to maintain that for at least a month if at all possible. Any suggestions?

Practice. You might have to accept that you will damage a few edges possibly, but I believe stropping damage is going to be easy to fix.
Essentially you need to keep your razor flat on the strop, lead with the spine, try to cover the whole blade with your stropping motion (think of a windscreen wiper), and flip the blade whilst keeping the spine on the strop and changing direction whilst doing it.
You do not need to be fast, even slow stropping will not take that long.
If you really feel the need practice with a non sharp razor like object, such as a butterknife.
Take it slow, be confident and really dont stress about it, anything you do can be undone, well unless you turn your strop into twins.

For an operation that looks so simple, it is surprisingly difficult to get good results, but getting acceptable results is critical since a SR must be stropped before each use.

I started getting sharper and longer lasting SR edges and fewer strop nicks when I learned to:

-keep the razor pressure on the strop very light, little more than the weight of the razor, A shave ready edge is very thin, delicate, and easily damaged through flexing it back and forth by heavy handed stropping.
-keep the pressure evenly distributed along the length and across the width of the blade when making the stroke. Holding the razor loosely and lightly so that it can self position itself evenly across the strop helped,
-keep the strop surface clean of micro grit. I hand rub it in one direction before each use,
-keep the strop surface free of dirt film. I occasionally need to wipe the strop leather surface with a slightly damp (not wet) clean cloth to remove a buildup of hand/skin oily film. This may temporarily affect draw, but the draw should be consistent along the length of the strop during the stroke,
-keep the razor clean. If any gritty feeling is detected, re-wipe the razor and if necessary, the strop surface,
-pay attention to the sound and tactile cues from the razor during stropping. Does it sound and feel the same in both directions? If not, there may be a rolled edge. Sometimes this issue can be corrected with more diligent stropping on linen and then leather, but sometimes a touch-up on a pasted strop or finishing hone will be needed. Control and smoothness matters. Speed does not matter and can reduce control.

Videos are helpful, but cannot provide the tactile feed back and do not show subtle manipulations very well. As your shaving skills improve you will be better able to evaluate your razor's edge and what is working for you during stropping. As your stropping improves and your edge gets sharper, your shaving skills will improve even more using a sharper razor. It is all interrelated. Most need to shave daily and we get a new lesson and test of our skills each day.

HTH

Yea, it is a deceptively simple looking operation. The previous poster gave you solid advice.

Bob

http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...st-2012-a.html

That is a pretty good thread

There are two stages to stropping
1, Do No Harm, first you have to learn to not set the edge back
2, Improve the Edge, as you get better you will learn to actually improve the edge as you strop


This takes time, and practice, there is nothing really difficult about it, but like any other skill it takes a certain number of dedicated practice hours to become proficient at that skill..