I Blamed Everything for My Struggles

[duke762]

My edges had no staying power. The edges wouldn't last and showed damage and chipping after the second shave.

It had to be my crummy honing. It had to be my vintage razors falling apart. It had to be my barbarian, shaving technique. I've been struggling with this since I started straight shaving 7 years ago.

My apex is gorgeous, strop it and check it, all is well for one stellar shave.

I paid more attention to honing and technique and got no where. Lovingly honed and stropped on my vintage shell strops that I'd restored.

Wait a minute, the only thing I hadn't tried was upgrading my strop. So I tried stropping on a 3" junk strop (ugly draw) that I'd scored for a friend wanting to try straights. Lo and behold, using that strop would let my edges last and last. Yeah, Tony Miller always cautioned about sanding strops. I'd never seen any weird stuff, like nicks or scratches, indicating grit in the strop. But after the second stropping, the edge was ruined.

I bought a Tony Miller 3" horse hide and my problems are solved. God I love this strop. I'm going to get rusty at my honing because my edges last so darn long.

I grabbed all my old strops that I had restored, or was working on, and put them away in a box so I don't have to look at my source of embarrassment. A user induced malfunction, stupid attack, cranial flatulence. I've struggled a long time with this. I should have figured it out a long time ago..........and paid attention to Tony's advice.

 

[silverlifter]

Knowledge is easily shared. Wisdom is only ever earned.

 

[Legion]

Still trying to work out how sanding a strop could cause that much damage to the edge. Was there grit left in there, or... Wha?

 

[rbscebu]

View attachment 1666952

Still trying to work out how sanding a strop could cause that much damage to the edge. Was there grit left in there, or... Wha?

Yes. It's the nature when you sand leather.

 

[Legion]

Yes. It's the nature when you sand leather.

I’ve not sanded the whole face of a strop, but I’ve sanded nicks and not experienced any issues.

Perhaps giving the surface a good scrub with a dry scotchbrite pad might remove any grit particles.

 

[alex1921]

take a loupe, inspect under sun light. If you have contaminated the strop from sanding you should see sparkle.

 

[Tony Miller]

Just to clarify, my objection to sanding is the chance of embedded grit hurting the edge. That said, it is a method that works if done and checked with care and I have done it to my own strops where I alone accept any risk of damage. It is not something I would do on any strops I am selling as I never wat to risk a customers razors on the chance I missed any embedded grit.

 

[duke762]

View attachment 1666952

Still trying to work out how sanding a strop could cause that much damage to the edge. Was there grit left in there, or... Wha?

My feelings exactly. At least it should give a clue under the scope that something in going on. I would expect some nicks or scratches would show up and at least give me a heads up that I have a problem. I've changed nothing but the strop and the problem goes away????? Yes the damage seems totally out of proportion than what you would expect.

Man I did the best I could. I followed a progression of 3M w/d religiously. I messed up some where and I pretty sure it's something I did to the strop. I've tried 2 restores with the same results.

Maybe I'm thinking about this all wrong. Could under stropping or ineffective stropping cause anything like this? I wouldn't think so but .......

 

[Steve56]

I’ve sanded strops with no problems. Iwasaki describes it and says that the steop should be perioc\dically sanded, but I usually don’t. You can feel grit with your fingertips if it’s there. I also burnish them well with a cotton cloth which might remove any lingering grit. And don’t use cheap sandpaper, get the 3M Color Sanding Paper for strops.

 

[Darth Scandalous]

I've used lapping film to sand the surface of on of the steerhide strops I made. It doesn't shed grit.

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

I do not sand but have scraped with a sharp cabinet card scraper to renew a finish.

A clean white paper towel will tell you a lot about your leather surface. look at it with magnification.

Clean linen is another big culprit for stropping issues. Cleaning linen is labor intensive and can take several cycles to get imbedded dirt and grit to release from the weave. Soaking and rinsing in vinegar will cause the linen to release grit and soap will hold in dirt if not properly soaked and rinsed.

Linen is/can be a game changer for long term maintenance, as can stropping on linen post shave. You can not just wipe a blade clean, look at it with magnification 15-20 minutes after you have wiped it.

All that soap, skin, blood, and oxidation, (oxidation is fine rust) gets imbedded into your strop, then you wipe your dirty hand and rub it deep into your leather… Look at your hand with magnification…

Think about it, look at your bevels with magnification, where do all the deep random stria come from, it was pristine when you honed it? The only thing your bevels touch are your face and your strops.

Tony Miller’s Flax herringbone linen are game changers. Clean Linen strops may be more important that leather for long term edge maintenance.

Stropping is way, way under rated.

 

[Alum of Potash]

I've sanded with 120x-180x garnet sandpaper, followed by a prompt application of a small vacuum to lift off any grit, and never had a problem. But that was a prelude to loading vegetable-tanned leather with paste.

Can't go wrong with regular stropping on horsehide otherwise IMO.

 

[duke762]

Well......now I'm starting to think it is not totally, if at all, a strop problem. I got about 15 shaves. (which is great for me) using the Tony Miller horsehide and the edge just suddenly, started pulling. The toe was all banged up, actually chipped and crumbly looking, the problem is always in the toe area. Same old thing that I thought was captured grit in my other strops. The first one fourth of the the blade with the toe being the worst. No indications it was breaking down, last shave was fine. Then boom. At 60x, I see chips on the bevel, almost heart shaped. Wider at the top than at the apex. Usually one or more of those and also some crumbly spots, like the edge failed and eroded away with the damaged steel having a grainy look to it.

I'd be the first to scream bad steel but it's multiple razors of different shapes and grinds, multiple bevel resets, multiple identical progressions Clean unrestored, didn't nick a finger nail or my glasses or a strop cap. Beautiful apexes coming off the finisher and after stropping. Actually, I only checked the first 6 or so edges after stropping because they were all the same, apexes didn't appear to change, I should have watched longer.

The heart shaped chips often require a trip to the bevel setter or at least the 5K. No easy touch ups in my world, but I love the edges and the new strop improved matters drastically. That makes me think it has something to do with stropping. So that leaves.....

User induced failure in some level of the process.....
I must be missing something important somewhere or this wouldn't be happening.

Stropping technique? Something I'm doing on the hones? Shaving technique, as in scraping under my nose or something? After all this time, I haven't figured it out. It's embarrassing... I see lots of guys getting many more shaves than this, out of an edge.

Any and all ideas welcome, flame proof trousers are on....I'm totally stumped and can't put my finger on what exactly I need to do to dig myself out of this rut of rapidly failing edges.