Thread: Canvas strops

In The Practice and Science of Standard Barbering by S.C.Thorpe

Thorpe describe canvas strops of high quality linen or silk woven into a fine or coarse texture utilized for putting a lasting edge on a razor.

He mentions rubbing a bar of dry soap over the strop and working it well into the grain of the canvas before rubbing a smooth glass bottle over it several times to both force the soap into the grain and also remove any excess soap.

Any beta on conditioning a linen or canvas strop
What kind of soap do you think Thorpe is using?

The list is endless for methods of conditioning canvas/linen strops and soap is a common theme. I would recommend a good plain kitchen soap like the stuff Grandma used for the floors but any of the shave soaps work well also.
On linen that has not been boiled before to stop shrinkage, you will have to use the soap dry. I would suggest that melting it into the weave is better, then scraping the excess of when hard.


PuFF

I just use mine plain. I'd love to find out what your observations are in time.

X

Considering when that was written soaps were far different than they are now. Most soaps now are a collection of chemicals while the ones used 100 or so years ago were more natural. If you could find and if they still make brown soap branded as Octagon soap that might be the closest you will ever get unless someone custom makes a batch for you.

I believe mparker has somewhere or another described the (very) mildly abrasive qualities of soap, the alkaline if I remember.

Look up an old thread called "Fire Ash II," I think it's in there.

Alan had a tip about rubbing grey-white ash into the linen, for a very gently abrasive lead-in to regular stropping. I've been using it ever since on my top two or three razors, and they've held on without a honing or other touch-up for over six months now.

Never tried the soap.

I wonder how 0.25 micron diamond abrasive would do here?

Any of our science gurus care to do a test on the effects of different treatments on canvas strops ? PM me if someone seriously wishes to undertake this.

MParker, AF Davis, Honedright?

Tony

I have conditioned the canvas on two of Tony's strops with the soap and bottle method. It gives the canvas a nice draw, I feel. Before the razor would zip over the surface, and it didn't feel like it was doing much. With the soap, I feel I get more control.

I used Williams Mug Soap, for what it's worth.

Josh

Josh,

Were there the 2 1/2" models or the 3" and if the 3" do you remember when you got them?

The linen weave is different now on the 3" and is a smoother weave than the 2 1/2". I started using it around the first of the year. The 2 1/2" has more of a washboard weave.

Tony

I found the post where mparker talks about soap & stropping:

Originally Posted by mparker762

I've got a complementary experiment that may shed some light.

Back just before christmas, I did a stropping experiment where I took one razor (a 5/8 Clauss Barber's Special) and my handamerican strop and used them continuously. One side of my handamerican strop was conditioned with Williams Mug Soap at the start and every few days thereafter, the other had been recently conditioned with Fromm strop conditioner. The razor was stropped 20 laps on each side before each shave, and 10 laps on each side before shaving my chin and mouth, and 10 laps on each side after each shave.

After a few days I started getting the urge to refresh it on the chrome oxide but resisted because it was shaving better than ever - I really am a chrome oxide junky, I love the feel of a chrome oxided blade. Anyway, after about 5 days I was beginning to think that the razor wasn't just shaving smoother but it was actually sharper. I checked under the scope at 100x and the bevel was smooth and the edge was extremely clean. By about day 9 I was beginning to get concerned that the edge was acting like it was overhoned, and by day 12 the razor was beginning to act like a feather, wierd unexplained nicks and such, so I called the experiment off, and gave the razor 20 licks on the boron carbide and another 20 on the chrome oxide and it was back to normal.

My theory is that a lot of the dulling we see really is from corrosion, and the soap in the strop was protecting the edge from this corrosion because of its alkalinity - steel won't rust in a sufficiently alkaline environment. Absent this corrosion, even the slight abrasiveness in the strop was sufficient to gradually increase the sharpness of the razor over a couple of weeks.

The tie-in to your ash experiment is that like soap, ashes are alkaline - lye used to be made by dripping water through hardwood ashes.

Anyway, it's a theory.

Edit: One example of this "steel won't rust in an alkaline environment" thing is automobile antifreeze, the alkalinity prevents the iron engine block from rusting. Oils tend to be alkaline as well.

Alan had a tip about rubbing grey-white ash into the linen, for a very gently abrasive lead-in to regular stropping.

dylandog

The tie-in to your ash experiment is that like soap, ashes are alkaline - lye used to be made by dripping water through hardwood ashes.

Anyway, it's a theory.

Nice hustle dylandog And likely more than a theory as I remember my ma used to make soap with ashes so there is the rub if you'll excuse the pun.

Cool I'm going to look up her old recipi I bet the soapmistress will be all over this thread when the wind catches her ear.