Thread: My stropping experiment

Yellow paste, red paste. Crox, Diamond, treat with Neatsfoot oil, Mink oil,etc. What to put on a strop? And if you put it on you can't take it off! At the Minnesota meet I got a piece of leather from HNSB. I liked it. It is the lower one in the picture. Today I made 7 more. 6 three inches wide and one 2 3/4inches because thats what came from the piece I bought. I now have 8 strops of very similar characteristics. I have a bit left over for a few paddle strops but this is enough for today. What should I put on them to experiment? Any thoughts appreciated. Tim

Nice,

you gave us to many strops and to many choices... put what ever make you happy but left one without anything on it and compare to rest of strops. I have two custom made strops without any paste and they are outstanding as they are. Friend of my made it for me back in Europe and I am very pleased with their qulity.

In your situation you have so many that I even don`t know what to suggest :-)

Good luck!

Regards

Im kind of in the middle of the same thing, I moistened one and rolled it with a heavy glass bottle, its like a whole different piece of leather. Ill never put sandpaper to a strop again!

Anyways im looking forward to the results of your experiment!

Leave one clean and put graphite on another. Everything else is just foolhardy honing on leather. I want you to find the differences between those two, such as honing characteristics, time between honings, smoothness of shave, etc. Just kidding about everything else bit.

Today I made a hanger for my strops. I put it up before asking my wife for permission! She has been shaking her head at me more than usual the last couple of days.

Since the picture I have added graphite to one. I was deciding what to use and my daughter said that didn't we use graphite for the Pine Wood derby cars. I looked in an old box and there was a tube of it. She is home for spring break and that must have been about 15 years ago. It made me happy to know that not all of what I was trying to teach the kids over the years has gone in one ear and out the other.

I am starting to wonder what I have started for myself. It is going to take a long time to try each these things out once a day to make a good judgement. Tim

Isn't graphite a lubricant? I'm using lampblack on newspaper (wrapped on a glass sheet). My regular strop is newspaper without the lampblack; giving me good results (and all I can afford for now).

Originally Posted by slickshave

Isn't graphite a lubricant? I'm using lampblack on newspaper (wrapped on a glass sheet). My regular strop is newspaper without the lampblack; giving me good results (and all I can afford for now).

That is what I think also. I have used the strop once and it has no draw. Hardly any resistance. No friction in my mind equals no heat so it would even take that possibility out of the question. It is very soft so I have a hard time believing it does much of anything. That being said I used it last night for the first time. I used to many variables to determine anything but the shave was fine so it didn't hurt anything.

Each of these strops cost me about as much as 4 Sunday papers so cost isn't much of an issue.

Tim

Tim, you are nuts! Hehehe.
I am looking forward to your conclusions on this...

What did you use to sew the strops?

I use graphite as a lubricant on my bass bridge to keep the strings from grabbing during installation or tuning. That is also why it is used on the wheels of your pinewood derby car.

I think Lynn brought up putting graphite on a strop. I tried it, and probably won't repeate because it leaves black on the towel. Does make it nice and slick though.