How gentle when stropping Rolls Razor

**breadstick** · 08-04-2011, 02:18 PM

I just got a BEAUTIFUL Rolls Razor and I'm going to take it on its maiden voyage this weekend. I have read the wiki article on it many times already and watched lots of videos on Youtube, but I still have one question. The wiki article says not to let the blade slap down onto the hone stone, but it doesn't say that about the strop. All the Youtube videos show working the blade very fast on the strop and it just slapping on the strop. Is this a good practice or will it hurt the razor or strop?

I also read about cleaning and dressing the strop, which I assume I need to do because when I rub my fingers on the strop I get some sort of red powder on my fingertips. The wiki says to use Lubriderm on it, so that's what I'll do.

**breadstick** · 08-05-2011, 02:00 PM

Anybody? I really want to take this thing on a maiden voyage tomorrow morning.

**michiganlover** · 08-05-2011, 03:11 PM

The strop is much softer than the hone. Feel free to strop at blazing fast speed if you like, no harm will be done.

The red powder is supposed to be on the strop. It's the Rolls Strop Dressing, and it has mild abrasive properties, meaning that it provides a small amount of sharpening to the blade.

The biggest issue you will face with the Rolls, is achieving true shave ready status for the blade. Most of these blades are no where near being sharp enough to shave with, and I am not convinced that the included strop, and hone are sufficient enough to return a dull blade to a shave ready state. If you truly wish to use the Rolls Razor you will likely need to send the blade out to be honed (user Ambrose has the most experience with this).

It's basically a straight razor, and hence straight razor shaving technique is used with it (shave with the blade nearly flat against the face, and stretch the skin to create flat planes to shave).

**breadstick** · 08-05-2011, 07:06 PM

Thanks for the reply. I'm pretty certain my razor is shave ready. It pops arm hairs just like my straight. I'm really looking forward to trying it out tomorrow morning. My wife is very scared for me.