Thread: Please critique my stropping

I just started shaving with a straight razor, and I'm worried that my stropping isn't up to snuff. I know that it will take a little while to get it fully down, but I just want to make sure that I'm not doing something blatantly wrong. As you'll see in the video, I'm laying the strop on my kitchen counter so that I don't have to fuss with the strop tension at the moment. I look forward to any advice you gents may have.

It looks as if you are keeping the blade flat on the leather and not using much pressure, this is good, but you may wish to change from an arcing motion to what we call an X pattern stroke. Please check out some of the honing videos done by AFDavis11 and hi_bud_gl. For the most part it looked good to me.

looks fine to me. i tend to roll the blade between my fingers a little more perhaps and not turn my wrist so much but i don't see that mattering either way.

Thanks for the responses. I feel better about my technique now. I'm trying to get the x pattern down along with rolling the blade in my fingers. The razor I have has a loose pivot, so I'm holding the scales a bit tighter than I'd like to keep them from flopping around. Is there an easy way to tighten a pivot?

Lay it on a piece of metal and lightly tap the pin with a hammer.

Practice with a butter knife when you want to try out a different stroke pattern, or try with a hanging strop. That way you won't damage your strop or your razor's edge when you're trying to get a feel for the movement.

I use a paddle strop, essentially the same setup. I have had difficulty with going "sideways" in front of me, and instead I place the paddle strop "vertically" in front of me with one end toward my chest while the other is straight away from me. In your case, you could mount the strop on a book or something else to get it raised above the table, giving you room for your hand. It works great for me, and I get fine results. This can be done on a desk and is very comfortable.

Your doing just fine.

Yeah, like the others said, it looks quite OK, except it looks really unnatural for you. I'd jump right in there and attach the strop to something (I use a carabiner to attach it to the towel rail) and strop 'normally' so to speak...

I think you're on the right track. A bit more of an X pattern, mostly on your pull stroke (back toward your body), and a tad more roll between your fingers. This will come with patience and practice.