Thread: 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

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

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

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

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

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

Originally Posted by PuFFaH

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

PuFF

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

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

And some are more blissfull than others