Thread: Poly webbing side of my strop chipped my edge:(

Good morning!

My family has embraced my new straight razor shaving obsession. Thanks in a great deal to information gathered here, I have been using a straight for about a year now and have gotten good at shaving and decent at stropping. (Still working on honing!) I had been stropping on a 2.5 inch bench strop and not using any type of other material. Anyways....to the point.

I got a new 3 inch SRP hanging strop with poly webbing backing, and started to mess with it last night. Stropping on the leather was no problem, it was nice to have a full 3in to strop on, though I have developed a "windshield wiper" stropping pattern from my smaller strop. However, the leather works great. Then I tried out the webbing, and promptly microchipped chipped the edge of my razor at the end. I was thinking about it this morning, and thought that maybe it was becasue it was a Spike point. When I was (trying) to strop it the edge snagged as I went across and that is what did me in. So.....I figured I would try this morning with a regular square point. Guess what.....same thing!! So now I have TWO razors with edges chipped at the end. Here is a picture of the razors and the offending strop:

I was holding the strop taut, and keeping the razor flat. What did I do???

Too much "pressure" while stropping?
Not 100% sure but I think you should be holding the strop "loosely" also....

I used normal stropping pressure. Should I use less than on the leather side?

Razor stropping - Straight Razor Place Library

I'm just guessing here that you may have turned the blade just a little too early and caught the edge while still moving forward.

It didn't happen when I was flipping, it was sometime during the draw. Should I be using very light pressure?

I always use the same pressure on the web strop as I would on a leather strop, which is to say very little. I try to use just enough to keep the spine on the strop and the edge kind of follows along.

There could have been something stuck in the webbing that caught the edge, but for it to chip the edge I would think there would have to be other factors to cause it to chip like too much pressure and something in the strop or another combination. You could have also lifted the razors causing the toe to drag harder and folded the edge and on the reverse lap could have snapped the fold off.

Ernie I noticed a small chip on my razor (I posted mine in the Razor section) and didn't even think about the polywebbing. I noticed mine while stropping on the leather but I had used the polywebbing first. I did not notice or feel anything but now you've got me wondering if I did something to mine on the webbing side.

I always keep enough pressure on the spine to avoid picking it up off of the stropping surface. The edge lightly skims the surface. I've stropped on all the usual leathers, poly webbing, racing harness salvaged from a nascar vehicle given to me by a mechanic, wool felt, newspaper. I've never chipped an edge stropping yet. Not saying it can't happen or didn't happen, just that it is beyond my realm of experience.