How many nicks is too many?

[Boshuda]

Hello all,

I am very new to straight razor shaving. I have been using a safety razor for about 5 mo, but have only shaved with a straight about 5 times so far (last two weeks). I am using a restored Morley and sons clover razor, and bought a nice strop that has two flaps one is leather and the other is nylon I think. It is from the premier strop company. I have apparently been careless in my stropping technique and have nicked the strop a bunch of times. Very small ones, but nicks nonetheless. I hope I can still use it? What am I doing wrong besides going too fast? I am turning it over on the spine now too, but I still seem to nick it every once in a while.

The nylon side is not nicked. Is that because it is made out of tougher material?


I am bummed. Please advise!

 

[Mick]

You can practice on a folded newspaper. You will get the same results with newspaper that you will on leather (some say even better).

If you nick the paper, just toss it and fold up another one.

I stropped on paper for a LONG time before I put blade to leather

 

[Alum of Potash]

Assuming that the nicks do not interfere with the razor's passage, you can gently sand them down with a small piece of 1000x w/d sandpaper around one or two fingers or the equivalent-sized sanding block using a circular motion (be sure to gently vacuum off the sandpaper traces afterwards though and touch things up with a little conditioning oil).

As for avoiding nicks, for me, it all boiled down to the way my thumb and forefinger were gripping the tang (read "shank" instead of "tang" in official B&B parlance). Rather than a top-and-bottom grip, more of a diagonal, corner-to-corner-of-the-tang grip was the ticket. A pass starts towards me, followed by away from me, the thumb always remaining towards the uppermost corner of the bottom of the tang (shank), this necessitating a turn of the wrist at each end of pass. Beyond this, there is the issue of the leather cupping, which can still lead to edge nicks; so as to counter act this, I prefer a barber's square-cut end strop (handled hanging strop models will work as well, just ignore the handles!), gripping the leather itself with the off-hand so as roll the surface lengthwise in a slightly convex fashion with the fingers on the edge away from me and the thumb towards me. I also do not use all of the strop's length at one time, just 12-14 inches or so, again gripping the strop with the off-hand just shy of this. To pull tight or not to pull tight next becomes the question.

At 100+ shaves with the same honed edge, Doc226 may be the grand master of the process.

But as always, whatever works for you personally in the end is the main thing. Good luck.

Edit: I notice that this is your first post. So welcome to Badger & Blade! Do introduce yourself to the rest of the gang in the "Hall of Fame" forum when you have the chance.

 

[Gamma]

Without pix it's impossible to say what the cause/s of the nicks might be.
For example - small nicks at the edge might be the result of the leather cupping.
You can reverse the curve with your hand before stropping.

 

[jeff_C]

pics of your strop...and your razor please?

 

[tezza]

This is where I usually get into trouble: Make sure you're flopping the blade BEFORE the end of your stroke, while you're still moving, and keep the blade moving, going the other way before it comes down again. BTW, I just posted some pics on another thread in this category, of a strop I nicked up pretty badly and subsequently sanded. Looks like heck but it's as good as new.