Breaking in a strop?

I've been looking into the how-to's on classic shaving website,
specifically on strops. There is a section on the different types of
strops and the one that seems most popular is the Russian/Cowhide. It
goes on to explain how to "break one in":

1. Rub dry pumice stone over the strop in order to remove the outer
nap and develop a smooth surface.
2. Rub stiff lather into the strop.
3. Rub dry pumice stone over the strop until smooth.
4. Clean off the strop.
5. Rub fresh stiff lather into the strop.
6. Rub a smooth glass bottle over the strop several times until a
smooth surface is developed.

Does this need to be done with off the shelf strops? Not that I'm lazy
or anything but I don't have a pumice stone, what is a nap, and what
is stiff lather anyway?

No, I don't think so, most strops of "modern" design do just fine. I think some types of strops need all that prep, but I forget off hand which ones. I suggest just rubbing your palm into it and see how it improves as you continue stropping. I like to add a little strop dressing occasionally, like once a month...but thats me.

I believe many of the Illinois strops require this sort of break-in. A new Dovo strop or one from Tony Miller probably won't.

I don't know guys but I have read the pumice stone thing for ages and in my opinion it sure is not going to improve any strops I have seen.

What "nap" is it removing to create a "smooth surface"? Other than the Illinois #827 Russian I can see it taking a smooth strop and rubbing a "nap" into it but surely not the other way around.

The Illinois (#127, 361,etc), the Dovo, the Jemmico, any of my Heirloom strops all come with a nice smooth but not slippery surface. Pumice stones are fairly aggressive and would tend to remove that nice smooth surface.

Now that said my oil treated strops have been "stoned" to create a fine matt texture but not all leathers will work this way.

Tony

Well, my DOVO russian was uneaven and wawy from the beggining... I used it for couple of weeks, rubbed it with conditioned, rollled with the bottle, what not, and it stayed that way. I then got some 200 grit sandpaper, and work the grits to 800, and it seemed improved. It was treated with the DOVO yellow paste every two months or so, with different results... I mean, one month the strop draws like crazy, so much that it makes stropping dificult, the other month the strop is mirror shiny and no draw at all... :shrug: Two or three months ago I made me a strop from army belt, heavy leather, and it worked better than the DOVO. Since I got one of Tony's strops, they are both retired to my great satisfaction...

Nenad

Please stick with me ... I'm trying to get this right in my head. :)
If I was to buy a Dovo Russian strop it probably wouldn't need any prep, just a strop dressing (such as 'Fromm Illinois Strop Dressing') every month or so. This would only be on the leather side, not the canvass side.
But if it did need prepping or it was rough in some way I could rub it with the palm of my hand to rub the oils from my hand into it. If this didn't work I could try rubbing a bottle on it to smooth it out. If this doesn't work I can use sandpaper going from 200 grit to 800 grit.
This is all just to get the strop ready to use. Once it is ready to use it needs only the strop dressing every month or so.
Is there any prep or maintenance for the canvas side? Where do the pastes come in to it.

Your getting closer...the strop dressing keeps the strop supple and working. Its not truely a part of getting it broken in. Pretty consistently you can just buy a strop and its good to go, thus the term strop (as opposed to belt, leather whip..or whatever). The palm rubbing acts like a break-in and conditioner. The rest I think your pretty close on....its a step by step process to get some really tough strops broken in I suppose. The key is to simply ask the group before you go off buying strops...I've never had one that needed anymore breaking in than being stropped (the stropping itself breaks the strop in)

Occasionally I find a strop gets warped or messed up and then I attack it with a rolling pin...I'm sure a glass jar is better but I'm not sure why...

I clean the linen every now and then and I put candle wax on mine, just so it works a little better. But I use my linen as an after shave cleaning strop and I think most guys use theirs to "heat" up the blade and give it a 'gross" stropping.

I once read about a guy who shaved guys with an old razor, a hone, and some tire rubber to strop on...since then I haven't gotten too spun up about how complex things can get...they only get that way if you let them.

The only time I've ever used a pumice stone on a strop is on the linen strop to rough up an old one once it stars to get glazed over. I don't think I would ever use it on leather. I have used the rolling pin routine on some older Eboy stropps I've gotten, it seems to soften them up a bit and take out any minor warps.

Mmmm... dressing. I'll take bleu cheese, please. (Sorry, it's been a long day.)

I take it, then, that strop dressing is what's in that bottle that came with my strop from Tony?

Abrasive pastes are great tools for edge maintenance. They usually lack the cutting power to establish a new edge or remove a nick; their primary function is to polish the existing edge. Dovo makes a red and black, although I don't know if I've ever heard what the grit/micron size is. Amplex makes a diamond impregnated paste that is supposed to be really nice. Chromium oxide works pretty well.

Pastes need to be applied to their own strop, and you should wipe the razor before changing strops to avoid cross-contamination. Lots of folks like using paddle strops for pastes, or the flatbed hone from HandAmerican.com.

Razors only need to visit the pasted strop(s) when the edge starts to dull through use a bit. When you can feel the razor tugging instead of cutting, time to refresh the edge. This varies from person to person, and often from razor to razor. There isn't a hard and fast rule timewise or number of shaves, it's a feel deal. I use 30-40 round trips on the pasted strop, wipe, then linen and leather as normal.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JerseyLawyer

Mmmm... dressing. I'll take bleu cheese, please. (Sorry, it's been a long day.)

I take it, then, that strop dressing is what's in that bottle that came with my strop from Tony?

---

Keith,
No, that would be a sample of Thousand Island <g>.

That is the strop dressing I include with each strop. Just takes a little, rub it in well, let sit a few minutes and wipe off any excess. It may remove a little red color so be careful wiping it off.

Tony

I think I'm getting warmer... So the pasted strops such as the multi sided paddle ones are somewhere in between a honeing/whetting with a sharpening stone such as a Norton 8000/4000 and a russian canvas/leather strop with no paste. And the reason for the multi sidededness (I think I just made that word up) of the paddle strops is for different pastes eg 3.0, 1.0, 0.25.
From the site the well shaved gentleman:
"This paddle features one 5oz red Latigo finish surface, two 3 to 4oz smooth natural surface leathers for 0.25 to 1.0 micron pastes and one rough, split leather surface for 3.0 micron paste".
This all seems a bit complicated/expensive. Can you leave out any of these items?

Your hot now....LOL. You need a smoothing leather strop and a method of removing metal. If your going with pasted strops they usually come with 4 sides or two sides. Without a hone, a 4 sided would be pretty iimportant. Once you buy a four sided strop, its not about what you can skip, its about using all 4 sides (the alternative is to use 3 sides for shaving and once side for disciplining the kids...LOL) So save the kids butts and use all 4 sides of the paddle. One, for smoothing, and three for removing metal. The 3 micron paste is about the same grit as the 8,000 side of a Norton. So your working "inside" the level of the most common hone. Therefore, this system would work best with a razor that is nearly sharp. That would be a new razor or one that has been used for shaving recently. Not as good for something very dull over Ebay. I think, but have never tried, that you could remove the 3 micron paste. This would leave you taking off metal with the 1 micron paste. I think it would work well. I think you could sharpen a razor that way in less than 5,000 laps. Doing that correctly would take a little time, a few months probably. Better, just don't skip that step, realize that 3 microns is very, very smooth and that'll take you long enough to remove enough metal to sharpen a dull (rounded) blade. Thus, why its so critical to keep the blade FLAT. Your trying to remove metal to sharpen.

To put it in perspective for you, as an analogy, (not really truth), a 3 micron hone is about as smooth as your computer screen. Run your finger over the screen, feel that? Now, go get a dull kitchen knife and try sharpening it up on your computer screen. Two immediate problems, you won't get the blade flat (angle by a razors spine creates the perfect bevel) because the screen may not be flat and, two, it would take a few months to remove any metal. It sounds totally stupid doesn't it? Thats only because we skipped several important grits we would need on the knife before the computer screen "grit". Now you can see why you need a sharp razor to start the process and why skipping steps is POSSIBLE, but waaaaay challenging.

There is a guy on another forum who hones/strops with newspaper. Pretty smooth stuff. He has to go to a hone every couple of months and I assume you would need A LOT of passes on that daily edition. That should give you some perspective on the kinds of smoothness factors we're talking about. I would guess it to be .05 micron AT BEST. Thats .05, not .5....

So, technically, you can remove a step, but WOW....what an additional work burden you'd have.

On the other end (the supersharp end to the just razor sharp), you might get away without .25. Most guys sharpen/strop up to .5 paste. As you get better, you might even get by up to 1 micron, perfecting your stropping and getting better with your shaving angle. You can replicate this by using a old semi sharp razor. Send your current razor out to a few close friends and ask them to shave with it for a while...you'll replicate 1 micron after about 1 week.

So that gives you some analogies..not really a perspective (as the grits and math are probably off, I don't really know the grit of a computer screen) but you'll see we're referring to very high grits, well beyond your typical kitchen knife experience. That would be one very rough hone being good enough.

We're talking about refining an edge to a very tight tolerance between each bevel edge.

Alan,
Good description. For people with a hone the 3.0 is the one to leave off and maybe add the 0.25 in it's place. Of course I find using pasted strops faster and easier than hones but I am not working with ebay specials. Using a pasted paddle with 9.0 micron I can get most out of the box razors sharp quickly. With 3.0 it takes a bit more effort.

If I wanted the right equipment and was on a budget too (or didn't want to learn to hone) I would use a hanging strop for the daily stuff, a 2 sided paddle pre-pasted with 1.0 and 0.5 for touchups and send out my razors to Lynn a once or twice a year.

If I was spreading the expense out over time I would use a Norton, then a 2x8 or 3x8 Belgian, the 4 sided all pasted paddle 3.0, 1.0, 0.5, 0.25 and buy the tubes of paste and a nice hanging strop.

My personal equipment, not what I own, but what I typically use is: A 4 sided paddle with 9.0, 3.0, 1.0 and 0.5. A 2 sided paddle, leather and balsa with 0.25 on each side and 2 hanging strops, one with my Latigo, one with Hand American Red Smooth leather. This covers 90% of what I need.

I have a Norton, I have several Belgians, blue and yellow and a dozen barber hones and I do occasionally send things to Lynn I can't handle. These are for fun and restoring older razors. For my actual shaving needs I use the paddles and hanging strops and could get by just fine with a 2 side and a hanging strop.

Everyone finds different tools that work best for them.

Tony

Your budget option 1 was pretty much what I was thinking of doing, so I'm really glad that someone who knows what they are doing is sugesting that. I was going to get a hone and hanging strop then send it off to Lynn every six months or so, but the pre pasted paddles sounds like a good option. My budget is a bit slim especally now that I have to go and buy a new computer monitor now that I have tried to sharpen my kitchen knives on mine :) .
This is probably a question for another post, but is the action of a pasted strop the same as a hanging strop or hone?

Thats a tough question....oh and sorry about the monitor...LOL. It depends on what you mean by the word "action". I will say this....a paddle strop and paste is better than a hanging strop and paste, because you can keep a paddle strop completely flat more easily. A hanging strop should be laid out on a flat surface for the best results. Second, the direction of any strop is the opposite of any hone. Don't ever try stropping with leather with an edge leading approach. Third, the "results" are very similar.

I don't want to say the "action" is the same, but I think the results are.

But if your just asking a non technical question like...."Are they the same?" then yes they do the same thing. They both hone an edge down.

I think of the "action" as being different but thats a technical discussion for another thread.

I think that by "action" he meant is the technique the same. To that I would say yes, same motion, same concept, blade trailing the edge, probably an X-pattern, razor flat to the surface whether a hanging or pasted paddle strop.

Honing is a different "action". Slightly different movements, totally different direction with the blade leading the spine now and possibly a different amount of pressure on the blade.

This is part of why I suggest a pasted strop as the first abrasive tool for a beginner. Same easy motions to master for both. Ray suggested it to me when I first got back into this and it is a logical approach. Honing is different and a bit harder to grasp and master.

Tony

I did have an old PMJ C-Mon strop that I had used a pumice stone on it to restore the surface with. I now have a new Heirloom strop that works great and I do not need to do anything too it except put a little Neatsfoot oil on it. They take about a week to break-in. By breaking in I mean too say that the
blade has more drag than when it was first used. There is a learning curve to everything here...

Glen

Thanks AFDavis11 (if that is your real name) and Tony (and everyone else), I guess I meant all of the above and both your replies answered my question(s). For the first time in my searches I feel as though I'm actually going to purchase the correct pieces of equipment. I guess that's what this site is for and.... well it seems to work. The question of if I can use them correctly is a whole new thing. I'll let you all know when I actually receive these and have a go. This might take a while nothing gets shipped to Australia very quickly. Thanks again for the advice, I'n sure there will be plenty of more questions to be answered. :)