Whats going wrong?

Hi there when I first started out I used the exact same strop as that and it was useless there was no drag and feel to the strop.

I bought myself an old one off flee bay and that did the trick for me.

My recommendation is to contact Neil and get one of his excellent strops off him. (buy a cheap one to start with you will nick it)
I do about 60 laps with my razors and it takes a long time ie. Months for the edge to go off.

Exile
 
Parwin said:
This is the strop from the bay.

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I mistakenly bought one of these for practising. I thought that anything would do for practising. But it was even useless for that. (BTW, if anyone wants a completely unused B&B strop, you can have it for postage.)
 
You gets what you pay for I supose. This straight shaving malarky is so expensive to get started I tried to cut costs a bit.
Will drop Neil a PM and see if he has anything suitable.

Will my razor need honing again or would a decent strop bring back the edge?
 
I personally don’t think it is the strop. I think it how you are stropping the razor. If you watch this video, you will see someone stropping with some newspaper. I’ve heard of people stropping on all kinds of things, even their hands (not recommended).

You can get a good strop as you can a bad one, but I don’t think you could blunt a razor in such a small space of time as you have, unless it was full of cuts and nicks.

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Bullah said:
...stropping with some newspaper...
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... is a workable option, although it's debatable whether it's actually stropping at all, or a very mild form of honing done backwards. It's a regular part of my honing sequence: three layers of newspaper taped onto a hard flat surface, but other people have improvised hanging strops with it. Potentially a worthwhile stopgap.
 
Bullah said:
I don’t think you could blunt a razor in such a small space of time as you have, unless it was full of cuts and nicks.

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Hmmm, not my experience. One stroke can do it. All you have to do is flip it wrong so that the spine leaves the strop before the cutting edge. If you do that - with enough pressure - the edge 'rolls' and usually gets damaged, leading to a visit to the final hone again, at least. Even a bit too much pressure on the cutting edge can distort it enough to damage it - you know how you can snap a bit of thin metal in half just by bending it backwards and forwards? Even if it doesn't break away, the 'fin' is weakened and pushes aside when it meets a bristle.

I have never done it, but I have seen it - a guy sent a razor to me saying that it wasn't as sharp as the first time he used it and could I check the edge. Under the loop it was fairly buckled up and had bits missing that had cracked off. Classic case of rolled edge. He had stropped the razor once.

Regards,
Neil
 
Parwin said:
Does the type of strop make a difference? The one I have is a cheap 'bay one.
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When I started I used a piece of leather kindly pif'd to me by a member on SRP which was OK, I then got a vintage strop off the Ebay which was a bit better but dry and brittle. I then ordered a 2.5" basic strop from Neil and it was so much better, about the some time I chucked the leather from the vintage strop and replaced it with a 3 ply of denim to make a cloth strop which works fantastically well. Between the 2 the difference in maintaining the shave readiness of my razors is staggering.

There is a feel and sound to stropping and I tend to know from the sound if I'm doing it well or not.
 
Neil Miller said:
Bullah said:
I don’t think you could blunt a razor in such a small space of time as you have, unless it was full of cuts and nicks.

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Hmmm, not my experience. One stroke can do it. All you have to do is flip it wrong so that the spine leaves the strop before the cutting edge. If you do that - with enough pressure - the edge 'rolls' and usually gets damaged, leading to a visit to the final hone again, at least. Even a bit too much pressure on the cutting edge can distort it enough to damage it - you know how you can snap a bit of thin metal in half just by bending it backwards and forwards? Even if it doesn't break away, the 'fin' is weakened and pushes aside when it meets a bristle.

I have never done it, but I have seen it - a guy sent a razor to me saying that it wasn't as sharp as the first time he used it and could I check the edge. Under the loop it was fairly buckled up and had bits missing that had cracked off. Classic case of rolled edge. He had stropped the razor once.

Regards,
Neil
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Hi Neil

What I meant was "I couldn't see how a cheap strop would do it in that time scale" other than stropping technique.
 
Have sent PM to Neil to get decent strop.

Hopefully not too much damage done.

If edge does not return with stropping does it need honing or would the chrome oxide do the trick?
 
Bullah said:
Hi Neil

What I meant was "I couldn't see how a cheap strop would do it in that time scale" other than stropping technique.
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Oh - right! Fair enough - I got the wrong end of the stick - again! No offence intended, just trying to point out the sort of damage incorrect stropping can do.

Regards,
Neil
 
What kind of strop do you use? Hanging? Althought I can't remember I had a dire problem like you but the use of hanging strop in my opinion less suitable than paddle strop for several reasons, especially for delicate edged full hollow ground razors. Since I have started to shave with a straight razor the only thing I have had troubles with was to strop the right way, probably because I am rather heavy handed and apply more pressure than needed.
 
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