Thread: Abby-normal strop wear?

Gents,

I edited this after doing more research. The original post below:

"A bit concerned. I got as a kit a 3" Latigo Red strop 4 months ago. I am noticing "wear" or "rough" areas along parts of the edge and patch-worked around the strop in general. When I rub my palm over it I get tiny red "crumbles" resembling pencil eraser fodder. Sorry for the pic quality. Do I need to "dress" it? Am I doing anything wrong here?"

Indeed, I was doing something wrong. I was putting WAY to much pressure on the blade I think. to the point where my stropping arm was getting tired.
I hope I have not ruined the strop - If I buy anything else my life will be dramatically shortened by wifey . . .

Am I okay with this strop do you think?







Thanks!

Alpsman

You could try rubbing a glass bottle or jar on it. That's been suggested before to smooth out the finish or nap of leather. I also recall mention of having warm water in it while you do it, but not sure if that makes much difference.

Before doing that, though, do you suspect something is roughing up your strop -- technique, damaged edge, wife ( )? Otherwise, I'd think it's just the strop being new, and needing some more breaking in.

I was having an issue with the right edge of the strop showing wear. It was the way I was stropping, doing a pretty sharp x pattern and the shank of the razor was rubbing the strop.

Latigo by it's nature will break down on it's surface to leave a course texture. This is normal and to be honest, prefered. I have dressed all my Latigo strops to this stage. It is a great finish and closley resembles Old Russian type finishes.
You can keep using the strop with this wear without any fears.

PuFF

No worries guy. Some strops have hardware at both ends in which case you can turn it around, I could not tell from the pics. Well now you know that stropping should be a gentle thing, live and learn

looks good to me. you will beat it up some more as you learn anyway, so this wouldn't be the right time to get a new one anyway. but I have a year and a half old strop and I've nicked it, and put on too much oil and washed it too dry and done messed up x strokes and it still works great. I figure after I do this for a couple more years I'll get another new one. But leather is really resilient. You can clean it with saddle soap if you get too much buildup, you can put on a little neatsfoot oil if you over dry it, you can hand buff it, you can sand down flaps, and it should still work good.

I do find getting strop technique right is an overlooked challenged - I obsess about my honing but now pay more attention to my stropping, and the key is to really lay the razor flat and apply little pressure at all.