Thread: Newbie Needs Help With Strop

How are you guys.
Im after some info on strops, I have 2 that I purchased from the ebay seller that sells the Wapi razors. 1 has a hard leather finish to it & the other feels very soft. It allmost feels like its Suede,which one of these would be the better one to use & if I paste one of these up which one should I use to paste up.I also purchased a Illinois strop yesterday with a linen side to it also,it has 835 stamped on it & was wondering if these are a good strop & what leather it is & if I should use this one over the other two strops, Sorry about all the questions.
Thanks for any help.

Sab.

First welcome to this board

Second - WOW that is a lot of strop you've got there

Third I'm a newbie myself and cannot contribute anything constructive on the topic, just wanted to say welcome. The wapi razors are supposed to be very good though, hopefully you got one with the strops.

sab,
The Illinois 835 will be fine for daily use. These are cowhide strops and worked well based on ones I have had when selling them.

If I had to paste a hanging strop it would be one of the lesser ones you got, not the Illinois. Ideally only experienced users should paste a hanging strop as it is easy to round over an edge in not really careful but if you concentrate on not letting it bow too much when stropping it can work.

I feel the suede side is best left along to use as is and apply a very fine paste to the hard leather. Even better, if you are handy is to make a wooden paddle or bench strop from a very flat hardwood board, cut the leather from the cheaper strop and glue it to the board. That would be iseal for pastes.

Take care,
Tony

The Wapi strops are pretty basic but they do the job fine. I bought 2 to make up straight razor starter kits for a couple of friends and decided to use them for a few days to see what they were like. Ok the leather is quite thin and stretchy but it does the job quite well, would be fine as an economy strop or for travelling.

Both of the ones I tried were quite soft leather so I can't comment on the harder leather.

Hi Gugi,Thanks for the welcome.
Tony Miller & Steelforge,Thanks for the info,so would it be advisable to finish on the wapi strop after using the illinois stop as it is softer.
Cheers.

Sab

No! The illinois strop is what you want since its leather is better. From my understanding the purpose of stropping is to align the edge and ensure it's smooth and flat. If the razor is 'shave ready' sharp you only need to strop it on the leather. If you use linen/pastes it would help keeping it sharp longer (as these are abrasive). Of course 'shave ready' is subjective. Eventually it'll probably need to be sharpened again on a hone, which is generally more abrasive than pasted strops.
I hope this helps.