Thread: First attempt at restore

The bottle would be for burnishing. Smoothing out the grain. Shell is pretty smooth already but it may help take some of the lumps out. I have never used lather but it may work just fine. Try it and when it wet try to get it to dry out straight and it should stay that way. If it's dried and cracking add some neats foot to your hand (couple of drops) and rub it in. Then wash the heck out of your hands. Lots of methods and preferences. The idea is clean , dry straight, moisturize. It's skin :<0)

Yeah you start staring at that rock, watching the colors and the water, feeling the edge as it glides across , and you lose count. That is why I said probably a hundred laps or more :<0)

I've used lather and a bottle to clean and condition strops, lather is what the old time barbers used. I just finished using lather on two that were not that dirty but dry enough to loose some of the draw. After drying for about 24 hours I applied some neats foot oil to moisturize, got the draw back.

The steps I use are;
Work up thick lather with tallow based soap, I use Williams, apply heavily with a brush, work in well (5 - 10 minutes) with a bottle, wipe clean with damp cloth (you'd be surprised how much grunge you'll get), wipe dry as possible with dry cloth then hang up to dry. Let dry for roughly 24 hours or until completely dry then apply neats foot oil and work in thoroughly.

Your strop doesn't look that bad and should shape up nicely, good luck!

You have a very good quality strop there albeit aged and well used. You got some decent advice as to how to clean it and hang it to minimize the wrinkles and warp.

Meanwhile you could PM randydance for some history about your strop. He is in Minneapolis/St. Paul and knows much about equipment history etc. Hess HairMilk strops in mint condition probably bring a respectable buck these days. I have a Hess HairMilk fabric strop that is not for sale. Utopian has one also................ We hope you can get your strop to useable condition.

That is a shell horse hide strop which is different than a normal horse hide strop. They are very good strops. No nicks so it is just clean, condition, break it back in and use.

Randy is the man! I have a couple HESS strops and have only good things to say about them. Yours is a lot nicer than a couple of mine when they arrived here and they are now pleasant to see and use.. Look up "Hidestoart" and he has some great strop cleaning and renewing info buried here and there throughout the threads.
HESS is still in business but not like they were and caters to Beauty salons and still some Barbers.
~Richard