First step in applying, just rub the paste onto a small area of cloth. I'm using a cheap terry cloth shop rag I picked up at Sams. I think terry cloth is good for this b/c it has higher and lower areas, and is rough?-whatever you call the texture it has. You have to press for the paste in the "crevices" (or whatever you call them) to come in contact with the strop's surface, allowing a more even and controlled application. Anyway, after you apply the paste to the cloth, you close it, and smear the pasted area around, so that the paste is distributed more evenly. You want to smear/rub hard so there are no clumps.


Paste on cloth


Closing the cloth to rub it around


More evenly spread out. Notice that the paste isnt clumped like it is after the initial application.


I didn't get any pics of the actual pasting, I didn't really think about doing that. Anyway, to apply, you stick out the first two fingers of your dominant hand, and get the cloth kind of wrapped around them, using your thumb and other fingers to grip the cloth. You want to make sure that the area of paste saturated cloth is right beneath your fingertips, so that you have good control over the amount of force you can use. You begin by VERY LIGHTLY rubbing the cloth over the strop. As the paste on the top layers of the cloth is transferred to the strop you can begin to use more pressure, to get to paste deeper in the cloth pressed to the strop.

This is one half of the strop covered in Dovo black. Most of the dark coloration is from the paste, not the smearing of newsprint, though there is some of that. See how light and even the application is? This method makes it hard to overpaste.

(A note on the pictures-the areas farther from the camera are more accurate, the coloration of the paste was washed out by the flash closer to the camera.)