Thread: Hello

Originally Posted by BeBerlin

Welcome to SRP.

It has been suggested that beginners should use a blunt object loosely resembling the shape of a razor (read: a butter knife) to learn the basic mechanical skills. I find that advice sound, and it would have spared me the extra cost of a second strop.

Originally Posted by dannywonderful

Welcome Gelflover!

What part of stropping is causing you most trouble? The only reason I ask is because I had trouble rolling the blade over on it's spine at the end of a stroke and finally got to grips with the problem by putting a newspaper on my lap and rolling a razor from one side to the other, over and over, till I could do it without twisting my wrist. I wasn't stropping up and down when I did this, just doing the roll and it helped me no end when I next stropped my razor.

Thank you both for the great advice. I'll be doing both since I believe that both will improve my technique.

Welcome to SRP! What kind of gear do you have if any, tell us more.

Originally Posted by GelfLover

I do have a question about stropping or learning to strop. I have read that slow stropping does nothing and that you need speed to make it affective. I am finding it hard to learn the action correctly unless I do it slowly will this create any problems if I do it that way?

If it's speed you are worrying about (I haven't had any issues with slowing it down), I find that the hard part is flipping the blade at the end. So, try this: position the razor in such a way that you can make a swift, albeit light, stroke to the other end of the strop. Then, take your time to position the blade on its other side at the far end, and make another swift/light stroke back. The stroke itself is as simple as it gets, it's the flipping part where guys nick their strops.

This technique helped me strop effectively, even while I was too clumsy to flip it at the end without nicking the strop.

Hope this helps!

Ogie

Originally Posted by GelfLover

I do have a question about stropping or learning to strop. I have read that slow stropping does nothing and that you need speed to make it affective. I am finding it hard to learn the action correctly unless I do it slowly will this create any problems if I do it that way?

I don't think slow stropping does nothing, as far as re-aligning the edge, and it certainly does not cause harm. MAYBE faster is better, but slow and right is better than fast and wrong. Do it at the speed you are comfortable with and work on perfect technique. That will train your muscle memory to do it the right way. Speed will come with practice.

Checking in to let you all know my progress. I had to let myself heal up for a couple of days since I really cut myself up badly trying to do my chin before. I did a search in the forums looking for advice on how to shave my chin and found out that I was using a D/E angle for shaving with my straight. I reduced my angle from 30 down to 15-20 and had a decent shave. Barely acceptable but only 3 cuts/weepers. My stropping is coming along well too. I started out slow stropping and it didn't take too long until I had started to build up speed. I wasn't trying to speed up, it just happened. The straight now feels very smooth to me as opposed to the edgy feel that it had before. I still need to work on everything but it is really coming together now. Thank you all for the advice and I'm sure that I'll have more questions.

excellent, it appears that everything is coming together just as it should.

You will find much straight razor info here on the boards and in the Wiki

Originally Posted by GelfLover

I do have a question about stropping or learning to strop. I have read that slow stropping does nothing and that you need speed to make it affective. I am finding it hard to learn the action correctly unless I do it slowly will this create any problems if I do it that way?

1. welcome!
2. follow the second link in my sig for an idea of what speed you should strop at.