Thread: Two strops or one?

I've recently started using two strops before each shave (thought I'd give it a go). for the first stropping I use one of tony's strops (linen first, leather second). This gives a good feeling of draw. For the second stropping, I use a dovo juchtens stropp (I don't use the canvas side), which has a very smooth and dense surface. I'm convinced that this produces better results than either stropp alone, and the shaves have been very good .

I'd be interested to know if anyone else has experienced something simillar, or if anyone has ideas on why this might be.

You'd have to discuss number of passes on each and number total to make it a pertinent discussion. Some say more is better. Using two strops is more. I find that some feel and experience are needed to strop correctly, and using two types of strops would probably help a tad.

Andrew,
I have done this with great sucess. A while back when I first started selling strops I made a "Tri-Strop" for sale and quite a few group members snapped them up. Mine was a linen, a coarse Illinois #827 Russian leather and a smooth Illinois #127 leather in a single strop. used in order, linen, rough, smooth, it was very effective.

I now manufacture all of my strops in house and occasionally do them as a 2 part strop with my Red Latigo on one side and Hand American Smooth Red Honing leather on the reverse. I make up the linen as a separate component if someone wants a 3 component strop. These work very well too just as you have discovered.
Keith's smooth red leather makes a nice finish strop after an inital set of passes on my latigo which has far more draw. The high silica content in the HA leather adds a final polish so both materials compliment each other well.
I also do any of my strops with HA leather in place of my Latigo if desired.

I don't have these on my site yet but did just make one up to photograph.

Best,
Tony

I like using two strops. Seems to work for me.

For daily shaving, I use one hanging strop the majority of the time and only use the leather side. It has been working well for years. When I use another strop, I use the Maestro Loom strop and only the leather side on that one as well. There really is no need to use two different strops on a daily basis. Lynn

Thanks for the replies. The three component strop sounds like a really neat idea. The two strops seem to be working well so I think I will stick with them for now. It really doesn't add much time to my stropping. I used to do 30 passes on the linen and then the same on the leather. I now do 30 passes on all three components (linen -> coarser leather -> finer leather). I know that some guys do upwards of 50 passes on each side of a two component strop (linen and leather), so I guess i'm not spending much more time stropping than they are. I've never used a loom type and always thought they looked neat - what are they like to use?

In an earlier post I mentioned I used to make a Tri-Strop from Illinois strops. Oddly one just turned up unused on eBay, probably from a past customer.

Item number is, 6632957335

I also do a new super version based on my Best #1 strops.


Tony