Hi all,
I haven't been around for a while. I've been busy with strops and decided to post here to throw some stuff out to the audience.
I recently gave away a perfectly functioning, reconditioned old Sears and Roebuck strop with a beutiful reddish sheen to it - why I did this I have no idea.
So I started hunting around e-bay and wound up buying 5 separate strops (my wife then told me to stop). All of them were old, hanging, horsehide strops. None of them have a handle for gripping hold of at the end, since I don't hold with that kind of fancy gadgetry.
Some of them had linen strops attached to them. Controversially, I decided that linen is a real pain and adds no value whatsoever, so I removed them (I have them hanging in my cupboard in case someone changes my mind). Not sure how the rest of the audience feels about linen, and about that elusive lime-type coating that it displays. I'm not sure I buy the theory behind it. Having said that, the theory I heard was that it cleans and warms the steel before stropping on the leather.
So what I was primarily interested in was the leather.
One of the strops was a Sears and Roebuck. It's quite a dark strop, and I'm almost certain that it's never been used, apart from one or two strokes maybe. With that in mind, it didn't need any serious work. I worked in strop dressing with my fingers and then a bottle and it seems perfectly workable, although it doesn't have the same gleam as my old one. Does years of stropping 'polish' a strop and give it that gleam?
Two of the strops were Russian reds. One of them, it turned out, had a deep cut right in the centre, which someone had glued together. I pumiced right into that cut to determine the depth. I was outraged, but I guess one in five isn't so bad. That one is a goner.
The second Russian red came up beautifully. I had to pumice it down a bit. For this, I coated it with a thick lather (Trumpers), let is soak in for a few minutes, then pumiced it down. The lather disappears as you work it over the pumice. Most of it was done gently, but there were a few nicks at the side where I had to go slightly deeper to smooth over the edges. Then I worked it over with the strop dressing and the bottle. It's come up beautifully. Although the nicks are still visible, there's no feel for them at all when stropping. The strop also hangs completely straight.
The next one was a very dark, almost black strop (brand: High Flyer). Again, same technique as with the Russian red: pumice followed by working it over with the bottle and strop paste. It came up really well, although it's not hanging completely straight, since the idiot who sent it to me in the post had folded it (but very loosely, thank God) in two places. I'm hoping these slight curvatures will straighten out in time and with stropping. The leather at the folds hasn't been broken or cracked. Anyone with any experience in this matter?
The last one was a smaller strop (brand: Pumble) that had really been through the wars. There were scratch marks all over it, and I didn't think I'd be able to use it when it arrived. I had to go pretty heavy on the pumice with that one. But when I worked it over with the strop dressing and bottle, I was amazed: the surface is now really smooth and there's not a mark to be seen on it. The only defect on this one is that the leather is slightly distorted on this one - there's a curvature to the side (as if it had been worn as a belt). I don't find this affected the stropping at all (but interested to know what others think). At any rate, I gave this one to my Karate teacher, just to be on the safe side.
So now, I'm left with three great-looking strops on my wall. I'm still working myself back and forth between them, trying to decide which one I like best.
One of the most intriguing questions for me is how old they are. I'm wondering if there's anyone out there with experience in dating strops?
Also wondering why there seem to be so many nicks along the right-hand side of old strops. Also interested in anyone else's experience with working up old leather. I didn't use mink oil in the end - just stuck with the strop dressing.
Any comments welcome.
PS - I'll try to post some images of the strops once I figure out how to work my wife's digital camera.
thanks - anders