Thread: Breaking in a new strop

Hey mosley59. Oakwood leather conditioner is great for leather strops & may be available locally for you. Or you can get it on line.
Oakwood Products

I'll give a boring suggestion. I broke in my strops by stopping, a lot of stropping. And lots of hand rubbing, while pulled taut on the hook. You'd be surprised what even a week of this sort of thing, a few times daily, will do to improve a brand new strop. It improves pretty quickly.

Ironically, even nicking my new strops with the razor seemed to help them in the long run. The glueing, sanding, and and extra hand rubbing to repair them actually improved them over time with use, just like a good saddle. Lots of use is the key I think. My original nicked and repaired strop is marginally better than my un-nicked ones, just from sheer use and rubbing.

If there's any accelerating trick I've found, it's to use the skin oil rubbed from my forehead onto my palm when rubbing the strop. I figure I have more skin oil on my face than on my hands, and it's probably cleaner too. And free.

Thanks guys. I nicked the strop already (god knows how, I was really careful!) so have had to sand it already. The wiki recommends 600 grit, but the finest I could get my hands on was Norton 220 wet/dry. Not sure if the 220 refers to the grit or what, but it felt about the same as a pumice stone, so I figured it shouldn't bee too bad. It took a bit of the dark brown finish off with it, so it's now chocolate brown with a few lighter blotches. Have I damaged my strop by using this?

I also rubbed a tiny amount of baby oil onto it to augment my natural skin oils (face and hands - good idea thanks FatboySlim!), so it's now velvety smooth. It's also got a fair bit more flex from a lot of hand-rubbing, so it's no longer like a leather board. Hopefully a couple of weeks and it'll be as supple as a belt or something similar.

I like to use neatsfoot and a bottle, but I have read several post where people use the lather from williams soap, let it dry and rub it in. I have not tried it but I think the real trick is to use a glass bottle. I do 50 rubs each day until its flat and soft.

Hope that helps

Crom