Thread: smooth cotton vs. linen and how often?

All right people, I am anxiously and happily awaiting the arrival of my new Tony Miller strop. the linen wasn't available so I am getting it with smooth cotton. I had two questions:

1. difference between cotton and linen (should i later get linen when available or doesn't matter)
2. how often do you use the cloth strop? weekly, monthly?

heck, let's make it three

3. should I put some sort of past on it or leave it alone?

Thanks all.

Red

Originally Posted by Big Red

All right people, I am anxiously and happily awaiting the arrival of my new Tony Miller strop. the linen wasn't available so I am getting it with smooth cotton. I had two questions:

1. difference between cotton and linen (should i later get linen when available or doesn't matter)
2. how often do you use the cloth strop? weekly, monthly?

heck, let's make it three

3. should I put some sort of past on it or leave it alone?

Thanks all.

Red

1. I only have linen, so I can't comment.
2. I use the plain linen daily, before plain leather.
3. If you want to use the strop to touch up dulling edges every once in a while, you could consider pasting it, but you should be aware that every time you use a pasted hanging strop, you'll slightly round the bevel. Pasted cotton is not a substitute for unpasted cotton in your stropping routine (but not everyone agrees there's value in using an unpasted cotton strop).

1. Doesn't matter...they are both equally good.

2. I do 20 laps linen 60 leather before every shave.

3. You can use it "naked" or you can use something like the white Dovo paste that's designed just for that. It's used in lieu of rubbing hard soap into it like the old time barbers used to do and will put a hard chalky finish on the linen which will help align and polish the edge.

I haven't used the cotton so I can't say. I do 50 & 50 linen leather before every shave and then 10 leather afterwards. I never shave with the same razor more then once in a week or two though. I wouldn't use paste on the only strop I had. I would get another reserved for paste but that is just me.

I have both and the linen might feel nicer when you strop but in the end the result is the same.

I usually do about 20 passes each time before using the leather.

Cotton or Linen will give the same end result. I feel the weave has more impact than the material used.
Dovo paste is a safe option if you insist on coating the strop but I would recomend getting a strop to dedicate to pastes rather than corrupt the one you have.
As to when to use the linen, when the edge needs it As a rule I found that the finer the finish hone used, greater the period on plain leather before linen is needed. An edge finished on a barber hone benefits a lot from linen stropping but edges finished on a esher will only benefit from linen when the edge has started to degrade. imo

PuFF