Noobie Stropping Questions

[Big_OC]

Just started my SR journey this week and I have a couple of questions about my stropp and stropping I'm hoping you can shed light one.

1) I shave daily and have stropped my straight after shaving but my question is, do I really have to strop it before I shave the next day?

2) Being a noob I have made some light scratches/nick on my strop due to me not lifting the blade high enough as I make my turnr. How can I get those nicks out?

 

[buca3152]

Make sure you turn the blade on the spine to change directions. Dont lift the blade off the strop or you will roll the edge like I did on my first two straights! Ive never damaged a strop like that, I dont have any advice on that though. A paddle strop is good til you get the hang of it. Just remember anybody can learn all this and 100 yrs ago there was no other way. I strop 50 laps before every shave, after I do 5 laps on the felt side to dry the edge and then 5 laps on leather which coats the blade edge with a tiny bit of oil from the strop. There are lots of opinions on this and YMMV as always.

 

[Doc226]

I routinely strop the night before the shave, not an issue. I give it 10-15 laps after the shave just to make the edge is dry.

 

[Firewalker]

Just started my SR journey this week and I have a couple of questions about my stropp and stropping I'm hoping you can shed light one.

1) I shave daily and have stropped my straight after shaving but my question is, do I really have to strop it before I shave the next day?

2) Being a noob I have made some light scratches/nick on my strop due to me not lifting the blade high enough as I make my turnr. How can I get those nicks out?

Turning on the spine and having some forward motion when you do is the hardest thing to learn, at least it was for me. You cant really get the nicks out but I did have to cut some of the little flaps of leather off that I made when first stropping and then I bought two strops from Whipped Dog that I am using now until I can control the razor 100% of the time.

I strop my blades a few times like Doc does to make sure the edge is clean, soap scum, lime etc before storing it for the next shave.

 

[Big_OC]

There aren't any flaps just scratches. I'll take some pics tonight. I thought I read somewhere on here that using high grit sandpaper can take those out. I have some 2000 and 2500 grit.