Thread: Stropping With Nicks In Leather

Hi, so I have a Jemico leather strop that I've had for about 4 years and would use it on my knives. Now this was my first strop and I'm sure you understand when I say I did quite a bit of damage to it when I was first learning. The edges have a good amount of nicks. I recently took some 800-1000 grit sandpaper and sanded down all the tiny ones and got it a lot smoother and put more paste on it. Now my question is, I'm new to SR shaving and was wondering if I could do any damage to the edge if it does still have a few nicks that weren't sanded almost flush. All of them are going the same direction as I strop so it wouldn't be snagging or anything like that. I also REALLY don't want to have to buy another one lol! Thanks!

I've been using a clean, "mature", nicked-up leather strop for a long time and never noticed any damage to any of my blades. The only thing extra I do to my strop is rub in some castor oil with the palm of my hand and that seems to keep the leather happy for a while. My leather strops that have cerium oxide and other pastes must be nick-free and glued on 1x3x24 boards. If any of those paste strops get bunged-up I replace the leather. So I guess I'm bi when it comes to using mature leather.

I guess nicks are actually negative space, therefore they don't exist, therefore the blade edge touches only the undamaged surface of the strop and is therefore undamaged. YES [ ] NO [ ].

You mentioned paste, if you have pasted your strop, you should not be using it as an everyday strop for your razor. Just buy a new strop.

Yes, an every shave strop should be clean leather and I like the herringbone cloth material for after I shave. I haven't noticed any ill effects from knicks and beleave me I have a few on my strop.