Thread: Talc for your strop, yes, no?

Originally Posted by Brontosaurus

Thought I'd resurrect this thread, as I'm curious about adding talc to cotton and linen strops, in lieu of the Dovo/Solingen white paste. Anyone try this, or have further comments to make relative to leather break-in with talc as originally posted here? For example, I'd be curious to know if charging a coarse weave cotton belting with talc, followed by spraying it with strong hairspray would help to smooth things, etc., etc.

I have taken my well used coarse DMT to a new woven fabric strop to soften the top of the bumps.
I am a fan of a single modest application of a submicron spray.

Chalk is interesting... It varies a lot and can contain a little or a lot of the micro amorphous siliceous
bits from sponges, diatoms and more (can be good). I once read that the 'ultimate' edge for a steel
microtome blade was had by using diatom rich chalk on a vibrating glass plate/table.

Talc today should be so pure and soft that it might best be used to smooth a strop and reduce drag.
It should be a do not care on canvas or nylon webbing. Hairspray or spray starch combined
with talc or good chalk might fill in the fabric nicely.

I have an old shell strop and the canvas is both much finer than newer strop fabrics but was
also fully fixed with a grout like chalk? filler. It has minimum 'buzz' when the spine runs over it.
I like it.

The SRP strops make replacing the fabric easy as pie. Try stuff even the back of a strop.
The back of a fabric strop is an ideal place to use 'stuff' like CrOx that the razor only needs
to see once in awhile.

The coarse modern canvas strops are one reason I love the hard wool strops so much.

My Illinois 127 strop took a lot of abusive break in and now is almost black and has an
almost polished surface with a lot of submicron abrasive in it. The black is oxidized steel
that now contributes to the polish and abrasive on the strop. Iron oxides are harder than
steel.

I am old enough to have used slate blackboards and had to clean erasers outside on a
corner of the brick building. If I had some of that chalk dust it would be on my strop yesterday.
Most chalk today is gritty and would not see my strop.

A spray starch and spent slurry from a 10+K japanese hone might also condition the
back of a new strop. If you like it go for it.

Two types of strop in my set, dirty black and finely abrasive very very fine that I reserve for
the first stropping after honing and nice and clean for after first shave on until the the next time
I hone.