Thread: Stiff strop

Hi everyone. I though about starting to shave with a straight razor for a while now. And a week ago my girlfriend bought me a kit with a edwin jagger cutthroat razor, T&H soap, a brush and a noname strop.

I tried the razor once without stropping and it did a pretty decent job. But not as good as i wished. So I decided to strop.

The strop is pretty wide and thick. maybe 9 cm wide and 3 mm thick. Both sides is leather, one feels a bit more coarse than the other and it got one steel ring on every side. It was pretty dry and stiff so i treated it with some fat that I got with the kit. Now it's a bit softer but still i find it to hard to make a decent strop on it. I saw some stropping videos and i noticed that the strops there is much softer than mine.

So my question is. Is my strop crappy or do i just need to break it in?

I also bought two honing stones today cuz i want to restore som older razors, one king combo stone 1000/6000 and one naniwa 10 000 stone (or how it's spelled) Does that work to do recondition work?

Cheers

First of all, welcome to SRP!

In terms of breaking in your strop, have a read of this article from the Wiki:

Strop treatment and repair - Straight Razor Place Wiki

What make is your strop? Where did you get it?

The hones you have should work for restoration, but you may find that you have to spend a little while on each one as there is a fairly large gap between grits. Here is the Wiki article on hone choice:

What hone(s) do I need? - Straight Razor Place Wiki

Thats not to say that you need each grit out there and a plethora of finishers, though it is fun! You can use the 1k to bevel set, the 6k to sharpen and the 10k to finish up with the set up you have.

Just be prepared to spend the time and make sure your bevel is properly set, and then to make sure you properly sharpen the razor on the 6k. Its a fairly large jump from 1k to 6k, and it may take some time to get the scratches from the 1k out with the 6k, and again to get the marks from the 6k out with the 10k, but I cant think of a reason why you couldnt do it.

Though to clarify, having more hones doesnt make the honing any faster, it just means you spend less time on each stone..! Fewer stones means more time on each one to refine the edge from the previous stone. Does that make sense?

Good luck!

Welcome to SRP. I would suggest you send your best razor out for pro honing. Once you have it back you'll have something to shave with and a benchmark to judge your own efforts on the other razors you intend to hone. A stiff strop isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some of the vintage strops I have are thick and fairly stiff. Are you in the UK ?

I don't know what make it is on the strop. But i figure they recommended it to my girlfriend cause they probably make more mony on selling a noname strop for the same price as a dovo. here's the link.
Gents Strigel av Koskinn - Extra Bred

I tried some stropping today and it worked a bit better now when the stop is fattened up. About the breaking in process on the wiki. It says that you should work som lather up some william soap and apply it on the strop overnight. does it help? does it need to be william or could i use the one i have? I have truefittandhill.

Also the i think someone have folded the stop before i got it, because there a wrinkeled pattern in the middle of the strop and a scar on it. I'll post some pics on it when get home.

About the hones. I didn't want to spend too much money on equipement so i went with those. Like you said, it's a big gap between 1k and 6 k. If it's too much of an hassle I'll just buy a 3k stone.

Thank's for the help guys!