Thread: Vintage strop

I cleaned up an old strop that I picked up. I cleaned and conditioned the leather, and ran the canvas through the washing machine to clean all the dirt/gunk off. The questions I have are: The leather seems VERY slick compared to my other strops. Is this normal with some leathers? The canvas seems very coarse and rough. Almost afraid of using for fear of damaging the edge on my razors. The go to strop that I use has the nylon type cleaning strop and the leather side gives me some resistance while stropping. Any comments would be appreciated

Yes, some leathers will be slicker than others and have less draw. I don't believe the leather and linen there are original to each other though...two different makers. You can clean the linen with just a mild detergent and water along with a scrub bush and let it dry, that should soften it up a bit, along with use...I prefer linen or cotton to the new nylon webbings myself

+1 to Robert's post above. That looks like a nice strop and linen. I believe that is a shell or horsehide strop and the draw will feel slick. A very small amount of neatsfoot oil rubbed on will increase draw as will palm rubbing. The palm rubbing might be preferable at first to see if that gets the strop where you want it. The old linen was a lot heavier than the stuff I see nowadays. One is as good as the other though IME. I've gotten vintage linens that were dirty and/or stored to where they had a bumpy surface. I washed them with cold water and Woolite. Left them to air dry with a couple of phone books on them. Came out flat and good to go.

In addition to the above advice, I used spray carpet cleaner (like resolve) on my vintage strop's fabric/linen component. I sprayed it on, let it sit and used a finger nail brush to work it in. I then blotted it dry with paper towels. Not only did it come out looking new, it's very soft, and not bumpy.

The red Imp fabric is linen and it's of a very high quality you can't get anymore. Scrub it good with hot water, detergent and a scrub brush. If it is clean you will see it's a grayish color.