Thread: Unpasting pasteds

My experience is once a strop is pasted it's contaminated for all eternity. Removing pastes is not easy especially when dealing with microscopic particles. Your best bet is to get yourself a dedicated unpasted strop and keep it that way.

I've had a few pasted strops that I've tried to unpaste. I used pumice and lather and neatsfoot and when all was said and done they still cut. I'm not a big fan of continually stropping with a cutting paste. It wears away the teeth instead of polishing them and thus reduces the life and usefulness of the edge. Their will also be a rounding effect on the edge over time and the bevel will need to be reset.

My 2 cents for what it's worth.

Regards,
EL

Originally Posted by elbonator

My experience is once a strop is pasted it's contaminated for all eternity. Removing pastes is not easy especially when dealing with microscopic particles. Your best bet is to get yourself a dedicated unpasted strop and keep it that way.

I've had a few pasted strops that I've tried to unpaste. I used pumice and lather and neatsfoot and when all was said and done they still cut. I'm not a big fan of continually stropping with a cutting paste. It wears away the teeth instead of polishing them and thus reduces the life and usefulness of the edge. Their will also be a rounding effect on the edge over time and the bevel will need to be reset.

My 2 cents for what it's worth.

Regards,
EL

On second though.............yeah, what he said <g>

BTW, while water, saddle soap, scrub brushes, and damp towels, etc.....have all been mentioned I cannot promise one of my padles will not be adversly affected by this. I never designed these to get wet and would worrky the leather could possibly loose it's bond or swell/shrink to a les than flat surface when done. Do these cleaning methods at your own risk.

Tony

I would like to preface my previous comments on this thread by saying that while I have cleaned plenty of unpasted strops in the manner that I have described with excellent results I have never tried this with a pasted strop, or for that matter a Tony Miller strop.

Mark

I`d use the Belvoir saddle/tack cleaner Step 1. It doesnt leave any residue or have any adverse effects on the leather and stitching, but it cleans effectively. Any decent saddlery should have it.

Tony, I tried boiling my strop in an ammonia solution for 30 minutes, thinking that might help, but now the leather is green and curling and the paddle is falling apart... Would your warantee cover this?

I ended up cleaning it with a thick saddle soap lather and toothbrush. I can tell there's some paste residue still on it, but I'm going to try using it for regular stropping and see how it goes.

Thanks for all the suggestions,
Josh

let it dry and clean it again using a washcloth (different type of scrubbing action so it will pull out some more paste that survived the toothbrush).

Originally Posted by JoshEarl

Tony, I tried boiling my strop in an ammonia solution for 30 minutes, thinking that might help, but now the leather is green and curling and the paddle is falling apart... Would your warantee cover this?
Josh

On more name added to the "can never buy my strops again" list <g>.


Tony