Red Latigo strop is leaching dye - normal?

I've been using a nice red latigo strop from Staright Razor Designs for a few weeks. I've treated it a few times with Williams' Mug Soap. It was really leaching a lot of red at first, i mistakenly used a white hand towel to wipe off the excess soap the first time, and boy was my wife mad!

So I only use paper towels to wipe it now, but it still leaves the paper red, wet or dry. And everytime I strop there is a dark red waxy gum that builds up on the spine.

is this normal?? or is it possible the tanning was done wrong? thanks.

I'm sure someone with more authority will step in, but I doubt anything was done wrong, as the QC I have found so far from SRD has been phenominal.
Why are you treating the strop? I have had mine since before they were even on the site, and never treated it with a thing besides a rubbing with the palm of my hand, and it works great, never had any color leach.

Don't worry, this is normal. At least, that's what I've found with two different red latigo strops.

My wife goes nuts if I use a hand towel to wipe or dry it for exactly those reasons.

You don't need to treat it. If you do decide to use neatsfoot oil, then use it sparingly. But I just use the palm or heel of my hand to rub the leather every so often. That's about as much conditioning that's needed!

I have the same strop, and as per Lynn's advice, the only "treating" it gets is a daily palm rub down. No red dye on my hands, though.

It kinda sounds like the soap is causing the dye to come off. You might want to ask around as to how to safely remove that soap.

I know that some strops are supposed to be treated with soap but I've never really understood the logic. You want oils in the leather. Regular shaving soap, as opposed to saddle soap, will remove oils. It doesn't make sense to me. If you have treated it a few times, stop. Any new latigo strop will release some red dust particles at first. I suspect what you are getting is those particles gummed up in soap residue. Now just use it and rub it with your hand.

Oh, and buy your wife a new towel...
and some flowers!

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Originally Posted by Utopian

You want oils in the leather. Regular shaving soap, as opposed to saddle soap, will remove oils.

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Hmmm, I'm really confused now. The only reason I thought to use williams is because the wiki mentions it in the strop article about 4 times. But I just went back to the article and saw the disclaimer:

"The information below will work for genuine leather strops, but not necessarily for other materials, in particular Latigo"

What exactly is Latigo? isn't it "genuine leather"? And if soap really is bad for strops shouldn't we change the article? Thakns.

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Originally Posted by smokelaw1

Why are you treating the strop?

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When i first got the strop, I did the palm rubbing thing quite a bit. But the the thing had zero draw, unless I pressed down on the razor super hard (which is a non-no). I felt like I might as well be dragging the razor across a piece of smooth glass (ok, slight exageration). I can't imagine how anyone could use a latigo out of the box to do any stropping, which is another reason I am wondering if I get a bum piece of leather.

Although I gotta say, after a few treatments with williams per the wiki article. I now feel plenty of draw using just the weight of the razor. go figure:shrug:

All leather is processed in various ways. Latigo has a particularly arduous process but in the end it is impregnated with oils. It IS genuine leather. I haven't seen that Wiki article but you're right, that is confusing.

You might want to create a new thread in the strop section, with a link to this thread, asking about this problem.

On the other hand, maybe a moderator could move it to the strop section?

I have the same strop you have and for the first several months did nothing but use my palm. If you put anything on it I would recommend a coating of neatfoot oil. Let it sit for about 24 hours and then either use the heel of your hand or a clean towel to remove any excess.

Lewis

The SRD Red Latigo needs now treatment except a daily rub down with your palm. It's already treated and treating it again may decrease it's effectiveness. I have one and have never done any treatment besides the palm rub down once a week. Not all leathers and strops are created equal:-)

This leaching of the dye is quite normal and it will decrease over time and has no ill effect on the action of the strop. Some Latigo leathers do seem to carry more oil from tanning and this will give the effect of a gummy red deposit on the razor after stropping. Again this will decrease as the strop gets broken it with use.
I would strongly advise that no oils of any kind are applied to Latigo until the strop shows signs of drying out. This will be some years in the future life of the strop. You can go the de-naturating route and remove some of the oils from the tanning and surface the strop to the broken in stage yourself but this will happen with use over time anyway. Plus the possibility of damaging the strop on the limited amount of advise that can be offered on this forum.
May I suggest you continue to use this strop as is and not to be tempted to fix what isn't broken. If you feel the need to test strop preparations then Tony may be able to offer you at a small cost some scraps of latigo to test these procedures on.

PuFF

The red dye thing is normal, it will rub off for a while, if oiled of treated it may forever rub off. Fromm conditioner will take the olor right out of a new Illinois strop as well. Other than on chrome tanned leathers I find most dye will come out if oils or dressings are used.

The wiki and "genuine leather". Remember, this wiki, like most on the web is written by it's users, not always the experts. I did not agree with the soap thing on Latigo and pointed it out. I explained that on most, natural tanned (which happen to appear tan) leathers the soap thing seems to work fine. I explained that Latigo is tanned and treated differently, as are bridle and harness leathers, some are more waxy, some are more oily. I gave an explanation of dressing these leathers to those actually editing the wiki, they gave me a proof copy where I objected to the "genuine" leather wording as they did not understand leather. It seems they never corrected their copy before posting.

Tony

Could not agree more. The only soap I have ever used on a strop has been saddle soap to clean an old one. I have found that the dye in the Black Latigo actually leaves more color on your hand from rubbing, but both are fairly similar. You have immediate draw usually with just a little hand rubbing and this continues to improve over time. I have used just a little neatsfoot oil and I mean just a little to hasten the process of working through the oil and waxes the Latigo strops are treated with. I have always had a little leaching, but again the hand rubbing takes care of this and I have never seen a negative impact on a razor being stropped.

I have never had a new strop from any manufacturer any where that did not produce a little collection of something on the spine and edge of the razor being stropped until it is broken in. I always have seen this when I wipe the razor after stropping with a white towel.

I love the feel of both Latigos after they are totally broken in. They develop a nice heavy but even draw, the leather becomes a little more supple and I truly believe you have a strop for life. The other good thing is that these strops have a nice draw usually right from the start and it only gets better.

One thing that concerns me here in the forums is that I am seeing a tendency to overtreat strops. I have also seen indication of people using way too much of whatever treatment they are putting on a strop too. When I talk of rubbing a little in, we are talking drops........ I also usually don't use a strop for a couple days during this process although I do hand rub them daily. For the most part, if a strop is not stiffening up from drying out, it really doesn't need much of anything. I am confused as well with the difference in terms between treatment and conditioning as used here too.

Lynn

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Originally Posted by Tony Miller

The red dye thing is normal, it will rub off for a while, if oiled of treated it may forever rub off. Fromm conditioner will take the olor right out of a new Illinois strop as well. Other than on chrome tanned leathers I find most dye will come out if oils or dressings are used.

The wiki and "genuine leather". Remember, this wiki, like most on the web is written by it's users, not always the experts. I did not agree with the soap thing on Latigo and pointed it out. I explained that on most, natural tanned (which happen to appear tan) leathers the soap thing seems to work fine. I explained that Latigo is tanned and treated differently, as are bridle and harness leathers, some are more waxy, some are more oily. I gave an explanation of dressing these leathers to those actually editing the wiki, they gave me a proof copy where I objected to the "genuine" leather wording as they did not understand leather. It seems they never corrected their copy before posting.

Tony

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Lynn,
We ought to look at that Wiki info. I am finding a lot of errors that are giving misleading info on strops. Leather care, breaking in, not pasting cloth, etc.......

I think many good pieces of advice that you, I, or others have given were inadvertantly twisted a bit to make a nice article and may be giving guys a wrong impression of what to choose or what to do. Sometimes we have made statements on a specific situation and it has been taken as a general rule. Some strops do need breaking in, some from lower quality leathers than we use need frequent dressing or treatment, pasting cloth is a fine idea IF one learns to strop properly first, etc.....

I'm sure similar mistakes are in other sections too. I'd be glad to help with it as I can and am sure we both have lots of info we can add to or improve.

Tony

I'm with you Tony.

Now if we can just get the new guys to read the Wiki before they shave.....:)

Sent the Wiki team a note.

Thanks!!!!

Lynn

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Originally Posted by Tony Miller

I'm sure similar mistakes are in other sections too. I'd be glad to help with it as I can and am sure we both have lots of info we can add to or improve.

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Tony that's the reason it is a wiki, improving it is straightforward and it will always be only as good as the community makes it. If the experts don't step in to fix the errors the errors will be there.

I'd suggest that instead of consulting with a 'wiki team' you just edit the article. You need to log in first (there's a link) and then there will be an edit link.

All the history is preserved so any new mistakes are easily reverted. And the 'wiki team' does get notified about any changes, so it's not like bad things will be sneaked in and remain unnoticed.

I just think the most efficient way to fix thing is just changing them. Posts in the forums cannot be edited, wiki can.

Gugi,
Actually the wiki team asked me for input in January which I gave but somehow got lost in the translation. I pointed out the errors when I returned the proof but it must have gone astray or never got posted. Wikis make a great quick learn but anyone's info gets included, right or wrong, hence the issue now.

The team contacted me today explaining a glitch as to why I cannot log in there so me editing it directly is impossible. They sent some instructions about word documents, text editors etc... that my non-computer literate brain is lost on.

I'll get with Lynn, come up with corrections and see if they can be forwarded to someone whos login is accepted. I would not feel comfortable posting there without censure anyway as I am a vendor as well as an experienced user and would not want any hint of vendor bias to creep in or be infered. I'd rather do this as a team effort with Lynn on new strops and would love to see guys like puffah, bigspender, and mparker jump in as well.

Thanks,
Tony

Tony, I found out that screennames with spaces like yours have issue with the wiki login, but we should sort you out very soon (I'd say ignore all that crazy word doc instructions, that's a good work around but for a geek).

I think at this point our problem is not people contributing bad information, but people not contributing good information. If things revert there's a very easy control to fix it, but right now most senior guys with a lot of knowledge are probably too cautious.
That's why I think we should try to lower the barriers to contributing in the wiki, they are currently high enough, with most of the old timers mistrusting it for any kind of reasons.

Of course, I know that you are worried about any perceived conflict of interest, but you're the last person I'm worried about introducing bias. I think as more of the seniour guys like the ones you mention start looking over and fixing things it'll quickly get much better and things that are personal preference will be clearly indicated as such.

Somehow having another layer to go through seems redundant and not very helpful at this time, and I think a perfect illustration is that the strop related changes didn't quite happen last time around.

I think the wiki team can just be mostly at the background and just coordinating when there are conflicting views on something.

I think I wrote the initial versions of few of the early articles (newbies, razors, etc.), which was basically getting together some of the sticky posts and cleaning them up. They have expanded a bit since, and have gotten better which is how it's supposed to be.

I know I could've sent this in a PM, but thought some other of the senior members will read it here and may be useful to them too.

That particular bit in the wiki about the genuine leather & latigo has been amended for now.

Lynn, My understanding of the term "treatment" is when a substance is applied to a strop to alter or enhance its ability or to correct a fault.
"conditioning" is how I would describe a process that maintains a strop characteristics, i.e. leather treatment creams/oils, saddle soap etc.

Hope that helps in understanding my posts at least.

PuFF