Thread: Lather in strop

I've been fortunate enough to discover this because I glued leather on the back of a barber hone and consequently got lather on it. I just put a bit of oil/dressing on it and rub it in, other than darkening no problems.

I personally would not recommend lathering a strop like mine. It seems the leather is darker, and the draw seems to have suffered. I had a difficult time stropping up a couple razors in the past few days. I am hoping this will get better with time but in the process I have nicked the strop about 5 times

I pumiced them down but it still makes me a little irritated.

Originally Posted by matt

I personally would not recommend lathering a strop like mine. It seems the leather is darker, and the draw seems to have suffered. I had a difficult time stropping up a couple razors in the past few days. I am hoping this will get better with time but in the process I have nicked the strop about 5 times

I pumiced them down but it still makes me a little irritated.

What was the reason for you dressing your strop and what strop is it?
I would say that a colour change is to be expected when you apply any dressing to a leather strop. Draw can be made worse or better depending on how you performed the dressing. Leaving too much soap on the leather can make it very sticky and feel like there is a lot of draw. Rinsing the soap completely away will leave the leather feeling surface hardened and with little or no draw. hardened leather fault can be rectified with a light application of leather feed (mink/neatsfoot/lanolin-whitespirit)

A full dressing is normally only used to correct the surface of the strop (bumps/wrinkles/glazing etc), there is no need to do this if the surface on the strop is flat and correct. Yes, lather can be used to clean the surface the same as saddle soap and this I can't see causing a problem unless the residue was left on the strop to dry.

I hope your strop recovers to the point where you like it Matt. When you grow attached to a strop it is hard live with the change made to it by applying a new treatment. Figers X'd for you Matt.

PuFF

My nephew got something on the strop and made it sticky and grey in a spot. I cleaned it up with some lather and pumice, but after that I nicked it up some. IT is a TM 3 inch honey brown strop. I believe it is cowhide.