Thread: Does anyone have any experience with this strop paste?

After messing about for ages with various strops and polishing compounds, I'm looking at experimenting with proprietary strop pastes. Does anyone have any experience with this one? It is made in Solingen, I understand by Herder.



I would be mainly using it on hanging strops, possibly fabric or leather.

Any thoughts? Many thanks.

It is a good product, the red paste is medium fine and black is fine.

It is made by Herold, who also make strops.

Originally Posted by Badgister

It is a good product, the red paste is medium fine and black is fine.

It is made by Herold, who also make strops.

Many thanks! And fine with a hanging strop?

The stats that they gave years ago, yes they work fine with a hanging leather strop as long as you do your job
I have found these to be very well matched to the older softer Sheffield steels

Green 5-8 micron
Red 3-5 micron
Black 1-3 micron
Soligen pastes are a much more mild cutter then say a diamond paste of the same micron size...

No experience. I use Theirs Issard strop paste from The Art of Shaving on the canvas strop. Have used it for years with only good results.

All of the Soligen paste work but where most folks have issue with paste, is using too much pressure. You just need enough laps to polish the edge, you do not need to polish the whole bevel. Do not use extra pressure, let the paste, do the work.

The Dovo White is a Diamond / Aluminum Oxide paste and will quickly leave a stria free bevel. Too much pressure or too many laps, will leave a thin edge that can easily micro chip, then you have to go back to the stone.

Before you paste a strop, you may want to paste a piece of cardboard, (inside of a cereal box) and experiment using as a paddle strop. Paste a strop once you find a paste that works best. Once applied to a linen or leather strop it can never be completely removed.

Chrome Oxide is .50um about 30k grit for comparison.

Apart from what I may have said elsewhere, my take is that these pastes are best use with limited surface areas, like the Herold tensioned loom strop or the paddle with felt underlying the leather, or the four-surface Thiers paddle. For larger, hanging vegetable-tanned strops sanded to provide some tooth surface, these are best used as criss-cross locating markers along the strop's length, followed by a charging with red ferric oxide pigment and black ferric oxide pigment.

Originally Posted by Euclid440

All of the Soligen paste work but where most folks have issue with paste, is using too much pressure. You just need enough laps to polish the edge, you do not need to polish the whole bevel. Do not use extra pressure, let the paste, do the work.

The Dovo White is a Diamond / Aluminum Oxide paste and will quickly leave a stria free bevel. Too much pressure or too many laps, will leave a thin edge that can easily micro chip, then you have to go back to the stone.

Before you paste a strop, you may want to paste a piece of cardboard, (inside of a cereal box) and experiment using as a paddle strop. Paste a strop once you find a paste that works best. Once applied to a linen or leather strop it can never be completely removed.

Chrome Oxide is .50um about 30k grit for comparison.

Thank you for the feedback.

I have had quite some success with pasted strops, especially with metal polish on a nylon strap. I tried this after seeing you express this suggestion on a number of occasions, and I even managed to take a razor from 1k bevel set to smooth shaving edge using this method.

I plan to try the pastes on some home-made strops, like this:



The strop is made from 2" cotton webbing, the working surface is 17" long, and I have material for four of them, giving eight strop surfaces. The idea was to use them to do some in-depth experimentation with pastes and compounds.

I also have three old leather hanging strops which have either required/will require sanding to get past cracks in the surface, or have had abrasives applied in the past. I may in future try using these with pastes or compounds once I determine which compounds work best on my homemade strops.

Originally Posted by Brontosaurus

Apart from what I may have said elsewhere, my take is that these pastes are best use with limited surface areas, like the Herold tensioned loom strop or the paddle with felt underlying the leather, or the four-surface Thiers paddle. For larger, hanging vegetable-tanned strops sanded to provide some tooth surface, these are best used as criss-cross locating markers along the strop's length, followed by a charging with red ferric oxide pigment and black ferric oxide pigment.

Thank you for the information.

May I ask why you feel that they work better on the more structured strops?

Also, what are 'criss-cross locating markers'?

Originally Posted by Montgomery

Thank you for the information.

May I ask why you feel that they work better on the more structured strops?

Also, what are 'criss-cross locating markers'?

Not very many laps are involved, so a smaller surface area means more control. Also, a larger surface means more paste, which is soon used up (you would probably get by okay with 2" x 17" as mentioned, however). Of the paddle types, I like the felt-lined best as I can sense the blade's passage better with it. Personal preference, that is all.

With larger surface areas, for example vegetable-tanned leather cut to a standard American barber's size of 2-1/2" x 24" and sanded to ~180x to give it some tooth, a series of Xs (more like stray marks in this case) are marked out with the crayon (red or black), followed by charging the surface with pigment (red or black ferric oxide). The X's create areas where the pigment can bond immediately, followed by a more even distribution in the areas where there is no paste. (Wear a dust mask, goggles, and nitrile gloves in doing this.)

For routine razor upkeep, a small paddle seems far more convenient, the pigment-charged barber's strop being more for a dedicated workshop environment.

Edit: Attached are some shots of a pasting sequence with paste and pigment. Everything smooths out further with continued use. Also some shots of a loom strop restoration in France, using just the crayon.