Thread: Strop Help

so i just began straight razor shaving and i through the dozen times i shaved and stroped my razor i put a bunch of nicks in the strop. does anyone have any suggestion on how i may be able to fix it using items i am most likely to find locally, or am i better off just buying a whole new strop?

I'm sorry to see what happened to your strop. Look on the bright side, many of us have done this whether we admit it or not.

Here is some useful information for you.

Strop treatment and repair - Straight Razor Place Wiki

Also, use the Search function for "strop repair" and search the Strop and Stropping section. A lot of good information in there.

Hey that looks a lot like my first 2 strops!

Hey that looks like my first strop!!! I'm waiting for my new one to come in the mail now....lol. At least I'll have a paste strop to use now.

try taking some high grit sandpaper and smooth them out. I mangled my strop when I started out, and while it certainly looked better before I attacked it with a razor, sanding it made it quite usable. YMMV, but I think you might have luck with that approach.

Some really good advice here for repairing that strop. After your repairs, keep working on your technique until you're not nicking that thing anymore. THEN plunk down the money on a nice one. I bought a 3" latigo after nicking up 2 cheapies and I haven't looked back. AAMOF, the only nick in it so far was when I foolishly let my 20 year old son try stropping and he cut it on the first lap!

I'm going to leave aside strop repair and give you a tip on stropping itself.

Start and end each stroke with the edge of the razor pointing straight up off the strop at a 90 degree angle.

So, get the strop tight and set the razor on the strop with only the spine touching it.

Begin the up stroke. Only after movement has started do you set the edge of the razor on the strop.

Before the end of the stroke, bring the edge of the razor off the strop so that by the end the stroke with the razor at a 90 degree angle off from the strop.

Begin the return stroke. Again, put the edge down on the strop only after the movement has started.

Before the end of the stroke, bring the edge off so that you end the stroke movement with the razor at a 90 degree angle.

If you don't strop like this, then when you stop the razor you risk accidentally moving the razor edge leading instead of spine leading. Even if you only do it for a few centimeters, you can easily damage razor and strop. You also risk picking the razor up spine first which can also damage the edge. With this method, you significantly lower your risk of damaging strop or razor in these ways.

Stropping like this, you should never have an opportunity to nick your strop. Also, see this video for how to hold the razor properly while stropping:

YouTube - straight razor stropping