Thread: What should I do with the back of my leather strop?

Originally Posted by dynaman05

Has anyone thought of smoothing out the backside and then pasting it? Just a thought.

All witty remarks aside.....

I have an old strop that I paste the reverse side of the leather with crox, great for a quick touch up occasionally.

The backside is the unfinished side,do nothing with it.

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

The backside is the unfinished side,do nothing with it.

Really? I'd read here that lots of people pasted the back side of the leather? Mind you, I used an old strop I don't use anymore just in case...is it because it could seep through to the other side and contaminate the strop?

Originally Posted by Phrank

Really? I'd read here that lots of people pasted the back side of the leather? Mind you, I used an old strop I don't use anymore just in case...is it because it could seep through to the other side and contaminate the strop?

Lots of people do lots of stuff YMMV

My ways are not for every body. That's starkly apparent from my preference for hand tools over power tools. Though I have some power tools, they languish. Pastes for me were messy, difficult to control the cross contamination and the edges produced thereof were not to my liking. I must admit that some of the edges were extremely sharp. However, gone are the days of struggling over which paste to use on what surface, searches for the perfect snake oil strop treatment and toiling to find a better way than I already had in my possession. I focused my energies on learning to use natural stones, natural clean linen or cotton and natural clean animal hide. My stones come from Belgium, my horse hide comes from Norway, my cow hide comes from Maryland and my honing solution comes from the clean cool running of the faucet, that'd be in Germany at present. I get delightful shaves daily and have fun doing so. Nowadays, I find myself experimenting with a number of different shave brushes and a couple soaps I like.

Aint guy stuff great! Again, this is my preference. It is your guy stuff, experiment if you wish. You may like it. If not, try what works for me. I like it.

Respectfully

Chasmo

It shouldn't ever seep though the strop but abrasive could build up in the fibers. Not really an issue, there will just be excess abrasive towards the ends of the strop. The main issue IMO is turning the fuzzy side smooth. if it doesn't feel like suede I would smooth it out first.

Originally Posted by davesmith

I can give some feedback having just used Dovo red paste on the back of the leather side of my strop, and I would not recommend it.

I had been refreshing my razor with the Dovo black paste on a fabric side of my strop quite successfully until it just wasn't feeling sharp enough to get a really good shave, so as I also could find anything conclusive about applying paste to the back of the leather side I gave it ago.

The result was not good, I could still shave but it seemed worse than before I used the red paste, the razor was very jumpy and rather than glide across my face it would jump across in a stuttering motion.

I think this might have something to do with the reverse of the leather side on my strop is not a smooth surface like to front or the fabric side, so in my opinion and after trying for myself I don't think it is suitable for using paste in my humble opinion.

Possibly your razor as beyond help with any pastes & simply needed honing.

The backside of even high grade strops are not finished Leather,paste it, use it, you will destroy your edge plain and simple.

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

The backside of even high grade strops are not finished Leather,paste it, use it, you will destroy your edge plain and simple.

Have you ever seen the scrub leather that comes with the SRD paddle? Would you not recommend using that as well? Curious if the use of that is also questionable. It seems similar to the back of a strop and I always wondered if the roughness of that scrub leather could potentially hurt a good edge.

Given the absolute smoothness of a finish hone, would it not follow that the leather should be as smooth as possible also??? I think so and I proceed accordingly. JMO