Thread: neurotic cleaning

I have a Russian finished vintage strop (made in Chicago) That I've been restoring for the last few days. I disassembled the strop to it's components and just gave the leather some strop dressing (was a bit stiff). The metal (brass?) clasp had been polished inside and out and is beautiful. The linen was almost as brown as the leather, but with some dish soap, bleach and a brush, it's cleaning up nicely (still has some spots though, can't seem to get them out). So it's about ready to be reassembled.
Is there anything I could/should do to this 'already been loved' strop to get it sanitized and ready to use...boy am I neurotic.

Hmm, short wave UV, gamma radiation or dipping in nitric acid?
I don't really know. Maybe something like a little borax or some better antibacterial substance mixed in with the conditioning oil? Alcohol is supposed to remove natural oils from leather and isn't advised according to an aquaintance who works in the leather trade and anything with water seems to stiffen leather.
Maybe you do have a uvc light you can use, for all I know, as part of a pond filter?

I'll tell you I went through a stage where I was buying strops left and right, all vintage. I think I have a strop made from every animal that ever walked or crawled on the earth and I spent I don't know how much tome polishing brass fittings and cleaning them up and all that. So I have all these strops and they just sit there. I use my two strops from Tony the Latigo and Horsehide. The fact is they are better than any of the vintage strops I have. That includes some NOS Vintage strops like my 2 DDs a horseshell and a cow and my red Imp and Page belting Horse.

I know wat you are saying man. I'm a big fan of my Tony miller strop and I'm planning to get the latigo to add to my collection. But I still want to get this strop up and usable, in case I decide to sell it or to give it as a gift.

If you want to try and get those last sposts out, and aren't in that much of a hurry, you might apply a dilute bleach solution and hang it out in some of that blazing Hawaiian sunshine for a couple days -

-whatever

-Lou

I learned a quick less toxic method that really worked for me, oxyclean! i just soaked the linen, rinsed then let it dry. It turned almost black linen white again.
for the really bad spots use it as a paste with a tooth brush.