Thread: Refurbishing a paddle strop ?

Hi All,

I just picked up a 4 sided paddle strop, German made.

Only 3 sides have leather the other is polished wood. The top surface is good leather and just needs some mink oil, the two adjacent sides are marginal.

Could I lightly sand these two sides to get flat and remove slight nicks and then apply diamond paste ?

Gary

This is a Tony question

If the leather is thick enough and isn't marginal all the way through you should be able to restore it but you'll find out soon enough as you sand just use the finest medium you can get.

Thanks Guys,

The leather is over 1mm thick so a light sanding to remove dirt etc then I should be OK I guess.

Gary

Gary, I once restored an old paddle strop by giving it a light sanding and then just used it with diamond paste. On one side the leather was not salvageable, I replaced it with some nice leather obtained from Tony Miller.

Before you do any sandinding, try cleaning the leather with the kind of hand cleaner a mechanic uses. This will remove all dirt and paste residue. It may minimize the amount of sanding and give you more flexibility in what pastes you are using. Another possibility is to remove the old leather and replace with new leather you can get from Tony or Handamerican.com.

I tried normal cleaning but this stuff was old and well crusted in.

I sanded all three sides in the end. Two of the sides were very nice softish leather and took diamond paste very well.

The main stropping surface needed some work but I got it nice and smooth and applied some mink oil to finish it off. A good result.

I tried it out of course and got great results.

Thanks for the tips.

Gary