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In my neck of the woods I've seen a lot of old strops in antique shops, flea markets, those used by relatives, estate sales, etc... Almost every one of them were pasted.
The plain leather strops usually had paste on the "off" side. Those with canvas were usually pasted on the canvas. Some type of green paste seemed to be most popular, followed by black or red (in about equal frequency).
I wish I knew what the green stuff really was... (by brand name or manufacturer)
There was an old fellow had a jeweler's supply here locally. I used to buy interesting stuff from him before he passed away. I bought some sticks for buffing and he referred to the green as Tripoli. Looks to be chrom ox with a binder but I am not sure.
I have a vintage Wester Bros strop with a red paste on the linen. I soaked it in Woolite today to try and get wrinkles out of it. The leather is fine but the linen has these lumps. I rolled it with a whisky bottle and I am hoping that when it drys it will be flat. The red paste didn't come out even with scrubbing with a brush.
Intereseting. I have an old loom strop I picked up in an antique shop. It has leather stretched on a loom around a block of wood. The leather is black on one side and red on the other. The wood has leather glued to 2 sides, one red and the other natural, so it has 4 sides, 2 on the wood and 2 stretched. The leather is in good shape, but a little dry and the paste is missing in places.
Can I treat the leather with neats foot oil to get it back in shape? Then can I put some green and red paste on it to bring back an edge?
Thanks,
Dave
If you put neatsfoot oil on a pasted strop you might just have a mess. If you sure what paste it is just put some more on unless the strop is in really bad shape. if the general shape of the loom and wood is good contact tony about getting some new leather to use if the leather is in bad shape.