Thread: Anyone using current production Illinois strops?

Originally Posted by honedright

Ah geez Mark. I was trying to avoid all that work. You see, I'm extremely lazy and proud of it. But if you insist, I'll see if I can find something.....



Scott

Sorry Scott! You see, my #361 works beautifully with little break in. I want to know what you do to see if I can improve on an already good thing.

Found this one: http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...-breaking.html

Read it rather briefly and the only thing I'd change is, I would now recommend using the pumice. I found that completely smoothing out the #361 with a dry pumice stone first was one of the best things I could have done to that strop. It now has a sort of mottled appearance probably because I removed all of the factory finish on the surface. I then performed the rest of the treatment as described with the lather, bottle, dressing and talc. I've also found that it isn't necessary to go for a whole 20 minutes of rubbing. 5-10 minutes seems to do just fine. The strop is now smooth as glass with minimal draw/ drag just the way I like my strops.


Scott

PS - Mark, it took me a whole 10 minutes to find that old post! You owe me a beer dude.

Originally Posted by JMS

Sorry Scott! You see, my #361 works beautifully with little break in. I want to know what you do to see if I can improve on an already good thing.

Repeating my caveat above - YMMV


Scott

Originally Posted by honedright

Repeating my caveat above - YMMV


Scott

Thanks, Scott. I figure I'll try it out of the box, and see what happens. No use in fixing something that isn't broken.

Originally Posted by honedright

PS - Mark, it took me a whole 10 minutes to find that old post! You owe me a beer dude.

And if you ever find yourself down San Diego way or I in your neck of the woods I'll buy you that beer!

Thanks for your efforts!

Originally Posted by honedright

One other thing, I think that the canvas that comes with the current IRS strops are crap (I think that is the technical term for it). I have experimented with ways of improving them, including coating with urethane and sanding which seemed to help quite a bit. My usual solution is to find a vintage linen hose strop, treated with wax as they usually were, and replace the IRS "Barbers Best." I realize that this may not be practical for everyone since the number of good vintage strops available is extremely limited.

I second this sentiment. The plasticky "linen" they use nowadays will leave a very rough edge IME.

I second this sentiment. The plasticky "linen" they use nowadays will leave a very rough edge IME.

Is there any way to get this linen up to snuff? I don't use
the 827 I have for this reason, and will probably have to
get rid of it.

- Scott

Originally Posted by sebell

Is there any way to get this linen up to snuff? I don't use
the 827 I have for this reason, and will probably have to get rid of it.

I've never found a way. Just replace it with something that doesn't suck. As Scott mentioned above, you can easily replace it with vintage linen, since many of the vintage strops have the same dimensions and handles as the Illinois ones, and there are a fair number of vintage strops on ebay with nicked or rotted leather but good linen. Give it a good scrubbing and iron it flat and you're good to go.

You can also get some webbing and fit it in. Cotton and Jute are common (Dovo uses Jute I think), and Hemp should work as well, maybe even better since it's supposed to be very abrasion resistant. Take the junk off the Illinois strop, and use a razor to cut the stitches holding the canvas to the handle. Cut your webbing to length (actually a little longer just to be safe), and smear some barge cement on one end and slide it into the handle, and clamp it tight for a day or two. Line up the new piece with the other leather side, and cut a hole in the linen for the clip screw and put it all back together. If you want to secure it a bit more solidly then you can put a couple of chicago screws through the handle/webbing joint. It's not quite as neat as the original stitching, but it requires a specialty machine to sew through the handles and canvas, and the chicago screws are a pretty trim alternative.

I've never found a way. Just replace it with something that doesn't suck.

Sounds good. I'm probably not terribly inclined to go this
route since I have strops that work great for me, but if I
ever come along a good looking vintage linen I'll be sure
to snag it.

- Scott

I'm kinda surprised to hear the negative impressions of the linen. I've been using the linen/leather for 2 months now with no complaints. I ususally do 25/50 linen/leather. But, again, YMMV. I'm lining up the pieces to grab a SRD Latigo 3 inch wide strop, because that's the only complaint I have about the IL 206: Its only 2" wide.