Talc for your strop, yes, no?

I've been kicking this idea around for some time now. It's probably not new, and it has probably been tried; maybe there is a post here somewhere.

Being a carpenter on and off through most of my life I've picked up a "secret" trick (not so secret) of using baby powder for polishes like french polish. As a musician I know that players of Tabla drums use talc on their skin drum heads; the oils in the talc are good for the skin (leather).

So I tried some talc on my strop. I understand that steel and a french finish are different things, yet I like the outcome; and I'm sure it doesn't hurt my strop any either.

At the least, it could help keep a strop supple, especially in the event one finds them self with no alternative.

So, any thoughts on this?

talc on the strop is also an old barber's trick. I learned about it via some old directions on how to break in a razor strop (applying talc is the final step in the break-in process) and have posted the same a few times.

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Originally Posted by honedright

talc on the strop is also an old barber's trick. I learned about it via some old directions on how to break in a razor strop (applying talc is the final step in the break-in process) and have posted the same a few times.

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Talc is an old hiker trick to not get blisters.

Talc can also take the squeak out old flooring.

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Originally Posted by honedright

talc on the strop is also an old barber's trick. I learned about it via some old directions on how to break in a razor strop (applying talc is the final step in the break-in process) and have posted the same a few times.

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Could you give us a link to this break in process?

And thanks to the OP for raising the issue. I'm interested in trying it.

Cheers

AND, scented talc can make you smell like a baby's bottom too—LOL

Thanks for the tip - I just gave it a shot. I'll need a while longer to reach a firm opinion, but it certainly didn't seem to hurt.

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 not tried talc on my strop. I do recall an old thread about using chalk powder as a strop compound as well. imhave also heard it mentioned as being in the old Barber books too. I would like to hear the results of those experimenting with this.

Like mentioned above

Talc/Chalk and Hairspray is an old Barber trick to recharge a linen strop after cleaning them

I was taught that back 1981-2 when I first started, it works quite well but isn't often used or talked about any longer

Same as cleaning/conditioning your leather strop using a Tallow based shave soap

I haven't seen either mentioned on here in ages but that is how I was taught :P

I have used Stirling's unscented tallow based shave soap to clean and condition a couple of old hardware store strops. Seems to help.

Lately, I've been trying to soften a stiff and relatively coarse cotton strop by rubbing it across the edge of a thick steel block until the fibers start to break down and pill. One side done this way, I pasted it with a tube of the Soligen/Dovo white paste, but I didn't like how the results turned out. So last night, I charged the other side with talcum powder and spritzes of water, rubbing it with my palm to even things out. Upon drying, the result there looks good. We'll see how it feels when stropping after tonight's shave.

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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.

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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.

I can verify that the use of talc on microtomes with either a vibrating plate or stropping on glass with talc. I do it every time I use a microtome.
I haven't felt it necessary to take a razor that far, but.....

Just throwing this out there. Talc and chalk dust maybe harmful if inhaled. It is mined near the asbestos deposits. Like everything else be careful.

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Originally Posted by Hacker7

Just throwing this out there. Talc and chalk dust maybe harmful if inhaled. It is mined near the asbestos deposits. Like everything else be careful.

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The geologist in me woke up.
Talc and asbestos before 1970 or so might have been a thing. It is not today.
Chalk is not found near asbestos.

Two kinds of diatomaceous earth... one is a much bigger hazard than the other food grade one.

Any dust be it wood, plastic, glass, stone, steel, abrasive, grinding, buffing, makeup etc. should not be inhaled.
So +1 be careful.

Very interesting thread. I hadn't really considered talc. I barely know enough to be dangerous. Of course, I don't know anything of a microtome. The talc, it seems to me, may add a bit of coarseness to help work the blade without the permanence of a paste. Am I understanding this correctly? Thanks!

Aloha!

Hmmmm.....

Well I have used Talc on one or two of my Strops in the past, but have not in quite a while. It's just not something I think of. Yet, now that I have been reminded because of this thread, I may initiate some talc to the stropping.

There was recently a thread on HAND stropping. Now THAT seems like a perfect time for talc! :)

Mahalo!

-ZipZop

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Originally Posted by 5G62

Very interesting thread. I hadn't really considered talc. I barely know enough to be dangerous. Of course, I don't know anything of a microtome. The talc, it seems to me, may add a bit of coarseness to help work the blade without the permanence of a paste. Am I understanding this correctly? Thanks!

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On a microtome you are polishing a nano bevel with fine talc.
While older microtomes look like straight razors, they are used more like a knife for slicing than scraping like a razor.
Polishing a straight with talc could get it sharper, but it might also make the edge so thin that it crumbles.
Just like using CBN or CrOx, the trick with talc is to know when to stop stropping with it.

As a follow-up to my earlier post, I rubbed the two sides of a dedicated Scupleworks cotton belting strop across the sharp edge of a steel block to break in the fibers a little, then I pasted one side with Solingen white tube paste and the other side with barber-shop talcum powder. The Solingen-pasted side felt little different than the coarse-grain cotton unbroken, but the talc-charged side, man oh man, did that not feel like softened dynamite! The only down-side was that talc powder was all over the blade afterwards, sending me to the local supermarket in search of a can of Niagara spray starch. Two passes with the starch, and hopefully, that will do the trick.

Edit: Subsequent blowing off revealed some airborne talc, although nothing like before. Followed this by repeated hand-rubbing, generating significant heat, repeating this a couple times more, seeking to drive any standing talc into the fibers. Another blowing off revealed no noticeable airborne talc. So, again hopefully, all is in order now. Yes, probably best to wear a dust mask in doing this...

Actually, a couple of years ago, Bart Torfs suggested finishing on talcum powder on an (almost) dry coticule to go beyond the coticule's own keenness level after maxing out on water.

It works, if you're looking for added keenness.

I also just loaded my vintage cotton strop with chalk (the high-quality blackboard kind).

First, paint on lather, let it dry until dry to the touch, rub onthe chalk until the fibres are clogged, then massage in a small amount of mineral oil, let dry overnight, rub/lightly brush off excess chalk.It's pretty much the same as the Dovo white paste.

I've tried this before. It doesn't really add keenness, but it works great for keeping the edge in shape, I'd say slightly better than without.

Best regards,

Pieter

I have stropped on a number of fine abrasives years ago when, I went through that phase. Yes, they and talc is one I tried, do work to a degree.

But the problem I had and have, is the unknown.

CBN eliminated all that with quantitative numbers that deliver repeatable results. Pretty much on razor all I use now, is Chrome Oxide and CBN in a variety of spray grits.

For most a bottle of CBN is a lifetime purchase, that will produce repeatable, stellar result of both keeness and comfort.