Thread: Paste on Leather

I see a lot of post with people adding paste of whatever color to their leather strop.
Personally I don’t think I can bring myself to put paste on a fine English Bridle Strop. I’ve been a straight shaver continuously since 1995 and on and off from 83’ to 95.
My Father in Law and his Father we’re both Barbers and neither of them ever heard of putting paste or anything else on leather.
I do use a fabric weave strop that I treat with CRX. I use a Crayon to apply it.
I also have a hard will felt strop that I spray with either Crx spray or .025 diamond spray.
I don’t use dressing on my leather strop. I just rub it with my palms good every few days. Maybe once a year I’ll had a few drops of Neatsfoot oil and rub it in with my Palms.
I only use the fabric with Crx when the edge feels like it might need a slight tune up. When it does I will do about 6 strokes on the fabric wipe the blade with tissue then strop 50 times on the leather and shave. If the edge still needs work I go the 12K Naniwa and dobten laps followed by ten strokes on Fabric with CRX the 50 strokes on leather and this almost always does the trick. My razors are HHT Sharp. I test the edge on at least 4 different places on the edge with a single hanging hair. I keep working on the razor until it possess this test.
Everyone has their own routine. Mine is one that has evolved through the years always subject to change.

I made two bench strops using cheap leather scraps obtained from a fellow who makes leather goods. The leather isn’t of a quality that you would want to regularly use as a strop on good razors so I pasted one of those with CrOx and use it only on blades right after I have restored them to see if I need to continue with the hones. I also use it one my kitchen knives.

I have a 2-sided paddle strop with hard felt on one side and balsa on the other. The felt has diamond spray and the balsa has CrOx. I use it to touch up a blade that needs some attention, but not so much that I want to go to the stones. My good paddle and hanging leather strops are untouched except, as you describe, when I rub my palms on them to warm up and condition the leather. Haven’t had to apply neatsfoot oil to them yet.

There are modern trends, but old-school barber's pasted strops may be more of a European tradition. In France, I've seen folks use pasted loom strops for the most part. My barber over there always runs a 3/8 near wedge over a severely slackened (or de-tensioned) small, pasted loom strop before cutting my hair with the 3/8.

If you want to experiment in this way, I would suggest starting off with some vegetable-tanned leather belting. Cut it to length with a utility knife and sand it with 80x, 120x, and 180x sandpaper (vacuuming off the dust after each grit) to give the surface some tooth, followed by an application of either Solingen red or black crayons, or both if you have two sanded pieces of leather. Otherwise, yes, I would not want to gunk up a nicely finished dedicated strop with paste.

I have a Tony Miller fast bridle leather strop and would never consider putting any paste or spray on it. However, I have made a number of bench strops by gluing vegetable tanned "tooling" leather to balsa or basswood that has been sanded flat. I use Elmers Extreme Glue Sticks to bond the leather and wood. The tooling leather and other supplies can be purchased from most hobby/craft stores. I usually purchase 8 1/2" x 10" squares and cut it into three pieces. You can experiment with both the smooth side and suede side of the leather to determine which you prefer.

There were multiple types of "Pastes" used back in the day


Lead, Ash, Talc, Iron Oxide, all kinds of things were used trying to push the edge

I have a lead pasted strop, that is a Scrupleworks extremely nice horsehide. if it goes on my razors why not a really good strop under the paste?, thinking about leading my Kanayama. as for the original question, the guys over on the far side of the ocean have been doing this longer than us and they use paste a lot. Tc

I use the Mastro Live CroOx paste on my SRD paddle strop English leather and it works great.