Thread: 48 square inches of Vegi tanned Horse hide = One happy Stropper

Originally Posted by Tack

Nooooo! Don't paste that precious linen! Good linen is becoming harder and harder to find. If you must use paste, why not put it on your old felt strop? Actually, the felt would be better anyway due to the more open weave of the linen. Here's what our dear friend Neil Miller had to say about his fine English linen..

"The 100% genuine linen is a natural substance and much less refined than white table linen, so it has a more abrasive effect and is better for preparing the razor for stropping on the leather. Unlike cotton/canvas, it does not require a dressing to make it more abrasive. Being less refined, it has wispy tendrils of fibre coming out from its surface, but these do not affect stropping. They may be trimmed or singed off, but they will fall away of their own accord during stropping."

Heh, OK.. rant off, it's just my opinion anyway. Many think that stropping on linen leads to a better edge but whether that is true or not, I love the feel of stropping on real linen.


rs,
Tack

++1 Please don't paste that linen...

At the beginning of the year I changed the webbing from my SRD Long Bridle strop to a linen panel from Torolf...
And I know the results are very YMMV, but for me the improvement has been noticeable.
I keep notes/log and when I think a razor is fading I make a note like "may be fading" or "edge is meh"
Get two of those in a row and you get moved to the touch up section and out of the rotation.
Over the last six months I've noted that the fading edges have come back and those that were "on" have continued to be great or even improve.

With care and good fortune your strop will be used by another generation or two...

Smooth Shaving

I too have a Scrupleworks strop and it is amazingly well constructed. The craftsmanship really shines.

Scrupleworks Strop - Album on Imgur

The only small complaint I have about it is the leather and linen components are attached to a single handle and of course attached to the same hardware at the top. The linen is just minutely longer than the leather so when I try to hold the strop with some tension for stropping the linen side is just a bit looser than I want while the leather side will be taut. I with the two components had separate handles like my Tony Miller so I could have the exact right amount of tension on either when stropping.

Bit of trivia, a scruple is an old unit of measurement used by alchemists equal to 20 grains or 1/24 ounce (roughly 1.3 grams). An alchemist would add a scruple to any order so the customer could not be shortchanged. An alchemist who did not do this was known as being "unscrupulous".

Beautiful strop. Have not bought a strop in years but that is tempting

Great strops! And pasting or rubbing CrOx on the back of that strop will give you the best of both worlds, as you can still use the front side untreated. I've done it for years on my best strop. But everybody has their own opinion on pasted vs. unpasted strops. Bottom line, use it as you see fit based on your best results, and don't worry about what anybody else (including me) thinks!

Ok maybe some misunderstanding here I have 2 strops my full leather & linen then a second linen only strop

I have No intention to ever paste the linen on my full strop


But paste my second linen only strop at some stage with 2-3 X's of 0.3 micron Chrox on one side then 0.1 micron Ferrox on the other side

Congrats my friend..................looks great!