Thread: restoring a vintage strop?

I found myself an antique strop, but its very cruddy and kinda gross. I tried scrubbing it with a brush and letting it soak with some water and lather and rescrubbing it. But all I seem to be doing is washing down dark red-brown colored water down the drain.

It's grainy to the touch. It says "The Southern Barber Supply Co - Roanoke, Va" on the bottom of it. What can I do with it??

Let it air dry slowly, very slowly, so the leather will not shrink, dry out become britle and crack. Once dry use a moist rag and some saddle soap, follow the directions on the soap. Once it dries again, use some neatsfoot oil to bring the leather back to life. Good luck with the resto project.

Thanks for the suggestions nun2sharp. I asked Firebox to take a look at it, and he suggested I take some sandpaper to it. I did some 120 and then some 400 and it really cleaned it up and smoothed it out. I skipped out on the saddlesoap and went straight to the neats foot, and it turned out great.

I have only restored one strop, but it worked out pretty well. I too lightly sanded it to remove the crud and then washed it repeatedly with saddle soap until clean. After it had air-dried, I applied neet's foot oil to it until it was supply.

Hi guys,

I thought it would be appropriate to post this here.

I just found 3 vintage strops at a local antique store. I am not going to buy them until I find out if they can be restored. I don't have a strop myself, I was going to get a TM "barber's friend" beginner's strop, but I thought if I could get one of these to start that might be worth it (12.50 each).

The first issue I noticed is that in all of these the stropping surfaces (front) are cracked. Pretty much like arid desert sand. If i curl the strops the cracks open up. The cracks do not go trough to the back of the strop. I am assuming that there is now way I can use these as they are.

Q1) Can the cracks be fixed?

Q2) Will I be able to ever get these strops to become useable?

Q3) One strop had a nice slice on the side of the strop should I not get this one?


Thanks!

Cracks like that are a physical thing and unless they can be removed by sanding the strop is toast. So it depends how deep they are and how thin the resultant strop will be and how much work is involved.

The leather is probably useless. On the other hand, see if the linen side is good. The linen is usually more preserved than the leather, and often just needs a good washing. That should complement your TM leather only strop nicely.

Thanks for the replies. The leather did look shot! I can't recall if there were any strops there with canvas but I will check again and pick one up for the canvas!