Howdy all, as most of you know we are all told to rub down the strop with our palm to soften up the leather and to make our strops more soft and supple. So being a good straight razor user I did just that, every chance I got I would grab the strop and rub my hand across it warming and softening up the leather. As a good straight razor user I would always strop my razor plenty to make it nice and shave sharp for that bbs we all seek. But I could never achieve this, I always has to shave with the heal or the toe of the razor to get that sharpeness I desired. I never knew why, I thought it was my technique so I spent hours watching videos to see what I did wrong. I went fast I went slow I did it all. And then a break through! I thought to myself. What if it's the strop and not me?(being a newbie I figured it was me not the strop which is a logical conclusion) so being the smart guy I am I looked over my strop carefully this way and that. And I finally figured it out! All that time I spent rubbing my palm all over the strop had made it bow. I guess I applied more pressure to the middle so the middle would cup in an my razor wouldn't make contact with it. A quick bend and a roll of the strop fixed that. I spent the next hour stropping each of my razors to undo any damag my poor stropping had done. All that perfect stropping paid off. My razor shaved like a dream today. So the moral of the story is always check your equipment and make sure you do things properlly!
Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for that. I put my strop back in its box when I'm finished with it and it gets stored flat. I have bigish hands too but I'll still be careful.
