Still struggling away trying to master straight shaving and just hit the latest hurdle which seems to be stropping. At the moment I am only getting one shave out of a razor before the edge is stuffed. Originally, it was poor honing, but after having a couple of professionally honed razors by well known honers, I am pretty sure that the culprit is my stropping technique.
The first shave seems to go ok although my technique there isn't the best with only 15 shaves under my belt. I basically do the shave and then strop before the next one, which I get the first pass done WTG and then that's pretty much it. The razor won't go against the grain or across the grain. It just won't move through the whiskers and I end up finishing with a DE. I can't for the life of me work out what's going on, but have come to the conclusion that I am somehow ruining the edge with my stropping.
The strop I am using I got on-line from an Australian Shaving supplier - see the picture. I guess it's OK. I have watched a lot of stropping videos and trawled through the forums but still no idea of what I am doing wrong. Do I put pressure on the blade on when stropping, or go light. I have tried both but it doesn't seem to make a difference. In B&B, people seem to favour either heavy or light. I concentrate on turning the right way on the spine, go slow, small strokes etc etc. But am fast running out of ideas, and have run out of razors. Once the edge is buggered, I don't have the honing skills to get it back - I have yet to master the black art of honing, I have tried with the 12 k Shapton to refresh the edge but once it's gone it's gone.
Stropping seems quite simple - just run the blade up and down and the videos make it look easy. However, no one really explains what they are doing - just running the blade on the stop at a great rate of knots. It's hard to see how I am ruining the edge, but that appears to be what is happening.
Am I alone in this? Or is this a fairly common experience for those starting out.
cheers
Andrew
The first shave seems to go ok although my technique there isn't the best with only 15 shaves under my belt. I basically do the shave and then strop before the next one, which I get the first pass done WTG and then that's pretty much it. The razor won't go against the grain or across the grain. It just won't move through the whiskers and I end up finishing with a DE. I can't for the life of me work out what's going on, but have come to the conclusion that I am somehow ruining the edge with my stropping.
The strop I am using I got on-line from an Australian Shaving supplier - see the picture. I guess it's OK. I have watched a lot of stropping videos and trawled through the forums but still no idea of what I am doing wrong. Do I put pressure on the blade on when stropping, or go light. I have tried both but it doesn't seem to make a difference. In B&B, people seem to favour either heavy or light. I concentrate on turning the right way on the spine, go slow, small strokes etc etc. But am fast running out of ideas, and have run out of razors. Once the edge is buggered, I don't have the honing skills to get it back - I have yet to master the black art of honing, I have tried with the 12 k Shapton to refresh the edge but once it's gone it's gone.
Stropping seems quite simple - just run the blade up and down and the videos make it look easy. However, no one really explains what they are doing - just running the blade on the stop at a great rate of knots. It's hard to see how I am ruining the edge, but that appears to be what is happening.
Am I alone in this? Or is this a fairly common experience for those starting out.
cheers
Andrew