Try this on your leather

This is a good, inexpensive way to condition your leather and put some good draw on it.

I use William's shaving soap for this (it's cheap and it's a decent shaving soap. I use it everyday), but any good cake shaving soap should work.

Make a very stiff lather (wet brush, stir up a thick concentrate in your mug or bowl, add a trickle or two from the faucet and mix your lather. You want it pretty thick).

Lay your leather strop on a flat surface like your sink counter.

Brush a thick layer of your soap on the strop covering entirely.

Let it sit overnight. In the morning, use your palm to roll the excess dried lather off of the strop.

Re-assemble your strop and give the leather a good hand dressing (rub with your palm a few times) to smooth it out and work any remaining soap into the leather.

The first couple of times you strop, use care, because this treatment will cause your strop to really grab the razor.

Good luck,

Scott

Thanks for the tip Scott. This sounds like something I'd like to experiment with. Unfortunately the Heirloom has been treated with mink oil so I don't think the lather would really take until I get another strop from Tony :hmmm:

Great Idea maybe this will get my tiny little antique loom strop conditioned well enough to have some draw.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by honedright

This is a good, inexpensive way to condition your leather and put some good draw on it.

I use William's shaving soap for this (it's cheap and it's a decent shaving soap. I use it everyday), but any good cake shaving soap should work.

Make a very stiff lather (wet brush, stir up a thick concentrate in your mug or bowl, add a trickle or two from the faucet and mix your lather. You want it pretty thick).

Lay your leather strop on a flat surface like your sink counter.

Brush a thick layer of your soap on the strop covering entirely.

Let it sit overnight. In the morning, use your palm to roll the excess dried lather off of the strop.

Re-assemble your strop and give the leather a good hand dressing (rub with your palm a few times) to smooth it out and work any remaining soap into the leather.

The first couple of times you strop, use care, because this treatment will cause your strop to really grab the razor.

Good luck,

Scott

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So I'm not alone in using lather to dress a strop. I tend to use a bottle filled with hot water to rub the lather in though. Priciple is the same I guess.

PuFF

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PuFFaH

So I'm not alone in using lather to dress a strop. I tend to use a bottle filled with hot water to rub the lather in though. Priciple is the same I guess.

PuFF

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In fact this is a very old technique used by barbers years ago.

Scott

Scott, where is all this old barber knowledge stored so I can get a read of it ? :)

PuFF

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PuFFaH

Scott, where is all this old barber knowledge stored so I can get a read of it ? :)

PuFF

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I have a couple of old barber school text books:

Standard Textbook of Barbering, 1950
The Barbers Manual by A.B. Moler

and some barber shop collectables books such as:

Barbershop History and Antiques by Christian R. Jones

These have all been great sources of information.

The barber manuals / texts are long out of print, but can be found, sometimes online. I think Mr. Jones book is still in print.

Scott

A great resource for used books is ABEBooks.com. I write Gregg shorthand, and I've found tons of good resources on that site.

Josh

Might be a bad move after all this time to start reading how it's supposed to be done :) Ignorance is bliss :)

PuFF

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PuFFaH

Might be a bad move after all this time to start reading how it's supposed to be done :) Ignorance is bliss :)

PuFF

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And some are more blissfull than others :w :D ;)

. . . and we have one in the help files, The 1961 Textbook for barbers.

Scott, I've tried this method and had no luck at all. I get no draw whatsoever. The only variable I can find is I don't have Williams soap. I've tried creams and I've tried Classicshaving soap.

Any thoughts?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AFDavis11

. . . and we have one in the help files, The 1961 Textbook for barbers.

Scott, I've tried this method and had no luck at all. I get no draw whatsoever. The only variable I can find is I don't have Williams soap. I've tried creams and I've tried Classicshaving soap.

Any thoughts?

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Alan, I don't know if it means anything for sure, but from what I gather classic soaps are glycerin soaps, and most creams have a bit much in there as well..I've had success with Williams myself awhile back when something similar was suggested to treat the nap on the Illinois 827 (along with a pumice stone rub and lots of attention with a glass bottle)
I think perhaps Tabac, or some other triple milled non meltable soap would work also, like Colgate or even some hard bath soaps like Ivory. The others have so much glycerin it might be self defeating. Just a thought, though it's not something I know for sure.
John P.

I think the type of leather in the strop will make this work or not work. Anything with olis, like Latigo may not do well at all with this. Just a guess but they are pretty water resistant so I can't see where the soap will help.

I am wondering if this is simply to open the grain of the leather. When wet a plain leather strop will have much more texture than dry. Maybe the lather is acting to keep the strop wet longer than just using water alone and then once dry the open pores harden a bit creating the increased draw.

In some ways though the strop conditioners lubricate the strop and then in the process of stropping the hard steel surface burnishes the now softened leather into a smooth, not so textured surface, which starts to loose it's draw.

Tony

Boy you guys are impressive. Well, I was able to apply Proraso Green and now have a good draw. I did add more water to the mix then originally and that seems to help a bit.

Tony, I probably need to break down and order some of that great dressing you provide with your strops. Maybe I'll just drive over one day to save shipping costs. :)

Alan,
Not much to look at here but I welcome a visit if in the area. I don,t have a retail outlet but if it's someone I know from the groups I am fine with a visit with advance notice.

Tony

Alan,

After reading your post I made up some lather with Trumpers coconut oil shave cream, coated my strop, and let it dry about 6 hours. It works, but I think I like the William's best so far. Both have glycerin as ingredients.


Scott

All this soap conditioning gets me to wondering how long the strops are going to last for you :p. I've seen some soaps turn bridles into leather chips. Saddle soap is specially formulated to work well with leather if you HAVE to clean it. I've found that cleaning my leathers with saddle soap when necessary and treating them liberally with neatsfoot oil compound seems to work wonders especially on my stropping leather. I've considered giving up mink oil in favor of neatsfoot oil compound.

I never have and probably never will put any other soap than saddle soap on them.