That is why I am asking now before actually doing it. My angle on this whole issue is that before the invention of the "safety" razor, people used straight razors as a regular shaving implement. It was not a novelty. They did not have to order shaving products from halfway across the continent. Hones are a different story, as it's almost impossible to get a naturally-occuring decent product, but logic tells me that they must have used something readily available to condition their strops, whether it was here in Canada or in Florida. I am just trying to find out what it/they was/were.