Thread: Strop conditioning

I regularly use palm rubbing on my two strops, that should be all you need.

The only exception to this, for the sake of discussion, was when I purchased a new Illinois #827 strop. I use this along with my superb SRD 3" Roo Strop, I added the option on the Roo strop of the 100% pressed backing, very nice.

The Illinois #827 is a great beast, very heavy draw, love it, and the back is pressed fine linen, it's very hard, almost like a bumpy glass surface, it's impregnated with cerium oxide, add a nice touch to a blade.

When I purchased the strop, it was advised to condition this strop once prior to use with Fromm Strop Conditioner, which I did and it works as proscribed. This winter has been exceptionally dry, and for the #827, palm rubbing wasn't enough, it dried out a little too much, so again I applied a dime sized dollop of the conditioner and worked it in, and the strop returned very nicely.

The Roo is such a nice fine, thin layer, that I've had no trouble with it at all, palm rubbing has been more than fine to maintain it.

Cheers!

went with a good hand rub today...not sure what I changed...but stick spots were not there...might be a blade pressure issue that I'm having, but thinking that it is just a bit more of a rub prior to stropping to get it dialed

I was looking to buy a new strop and noticed that Illinois had an oil based conditioner and Dovo had a Yellow tube paste type conditioner for strops how do those compare? And which one do you think does a better job in conditioning a leather of my new strop?

Originally Posted by Giorgio

I was looking to buy a new strop and noticed that Illinois had an oil based conditioner and Dovo had a Yellow tube paste type conditioner for strops how do those compare? And which one do you think does a better job in conditioning a leather of my new strop?

Generally, strops do not need to be conditioned. Either they come pre-conditioned, as in some vendors (like the Classic Edge) who sell them as part of a starter kit(specifically the #827), or if you buy on it's own, as I did, the Illinois #827, it was advised to apply one treatment of the Fromm Strop Conditioner.

Other than that one case where I've specifically read to condition a strop, I would apply nothing to a strop but frequent conditioning by rubbing the strop with the palm of your hand. As in anything, there are multiple opinions, but AFAIK, the majority opinion is palm rubbing will suffice.