Shave ready razor

[stroma]

Am I right in understanding that you can buy a fully shave ready razor, have one shave, and it need's to be stropped before one can have another shave?

Which might mean, I can take a beautifully finished edge, have one shave, and because I am totally inept at stopping, can basically make that razor unusable.

Sorry folks, if this is so basic a question that it makes any members annoyed.

Kind regards

Stroma

 

[Wid]

Sure, you can ruin an edge with bad stropping.

 

[Doc226]

Yep.

Stropping is not that hard, just go slow until you get the hang of it.

 

[Luc]

You can shave and then shave again without stropping but you won't get a second smooth shave, that's guaranteed. You need to strop between each shave, always. Stropping can mess the edge as mentioned above if done the wrong way.

 

[gash]

Stropping is pretty easy. If you go slowly and carefully, you're almost guaranteed to do it well.

 

[fccexpert]

I personally have never ruined an edge by bad stropping, but I suppose it's possible if you do it really badly. To answer you first question, however, you do not really need to strop after every shave (or before the second shave). You can probably get by with 2-3 shaves before you strop. Even then, you can sucessfully realign the edge on the heal of your hand - just be careful not to cut yourself.

 

[Slash McCoy]

It's not all that difficult.

Pull the strop nice and tight. If the center seems to be below the level of the edges, you have cupping. You can correct that by digging upward with your knuckle.

The spine of the razor should touch the strop before the edge. The spine must always be on the strop if the edge is even near it.

When you flip the blade to reverse direction, always flip the EDGE out, not the spine. The spine stays on the strop.

Do not press the razor hard on the strop. Light pressure. It must not cause the strop to sag. Only a little more pressure than just the weight of the blade, is enough.

Do not let the shoulder ride up on the strop. If you do, the heel will not get stropped, but the toe will get too much pressure.

Even if you have a sufficiently wide strop, you should still use a little bit of an x-stroke. IOW Pull the razor slightly sideways as it goes along the strop. With a narrow strop use enough of an X-stroke to ensure that the entire edge gets attention during the stroke.

Don't "bend" the razor over the edge of the strop.

The razor must always travel on the strop with the spine leading, never the edge.

Make sure that the razor has stopped at the end of the stroke before flipping the blade. When the edge makes contact, the razor should already be moving in the new direction.

40 or 50 laps is sufficient. A lap is one round trip up and down the strop.

If you have a piece of crap razor to practice your stropping with, that would be a big help.

Take your time. The stroke should be fairly brisk but take your time on the turnaround. It isn't a race and you aren't in a movie.

Don't let the razor hit any hardware or any seam or sewing.

If you pay attention to the details you won't mess up your edge. A practice run or two will help you to nail it, and build your confidence, too. If you are worried about slicing up your new strop, I suggest stropping on newspaper the first few shaves. Simply take a whole sheet of newspaper and fold it lengthwise until it is only 3" wide or slightly less. The average razor edge is just a little more than 2-3/4" long so that should put it in perspective. Anyway pass one end of the folded paper over your towel rod and then pinch both ends together. Pull it tight. Walah. Instant, disposable strop. If you hack it to bits, no big deal. When you are sure you won't destroy your leather strop, start using it. Remember the newspaper trick because it works well enough in an emergency.

 

[hotreds]

I think I dulled my edge by stropping incorrectly. Now I am very careful and go slow. At first I was too enamored with the Speedy Gonzlez stropping I'd seen in movies and I ruined my edge to the point I needed to get the blade re-honed. I also ruined the strop! But, with practice you'll get there- WE'LL get there- or so I hope!

 

[tomjr]

speed comes after learning to do it well, just not too much speed because it amplify's your mistakes= cut strops. tom