Thread: Illinois 6515 Double Leather Strop Question

Welcome to the strop side of wet shaving gitch414 [emoji4]
ฬє ђคνє ς๏๏кเєร [emoji38]

gitch414, welcome to SRP. I am going to make a hard statement. Until you have shaved with a pro, or Mentor honed razor, all you will do is ruin the edge and the geometry of your razor. Reading about it and watching some videos is not a good grounding for success. Case in point: I am a Mentor, I can do basic honing. I hit a brick wall in my honing after several successes. I arranged a session with my original Mentor to figure out the problem. It's all in the bevel setting. I repeat, it's all in the bevel setting. And add to that I was shown how to identify problems with a razor and its edge that had not occurred to me before. Even a slight, almost unseen frown tot he edge will give you problems if it isn't corrected. If the blade is even slightly warped a totally different approach needs to be taken to get a decent bevel. I know now enough to know I know little of what I should know. Do yourself a huge, HUGE, favor. Get the razor honed by someone that knows what they are doing. And if you have honed knives don't even think there is a comparison. Razor honing is far more complicated and satisfying once learned.

I was afraid of the wrinkles in that center part, I saw somewhere if the strop had been tightly wrapped it could ruin it with wrinkles. But after a couple rounds of saddle soap and one application of neatsfoot oil it really smoothed itself out! I then rubbed the remaining rougher spots with my fingertips and it went almost completely away!

I'm very encouraged by this progress. I'll post photos with a more complete description so others can see.

Here are some pictures of my strop and how I cleaned/oiled it.



A local farm supply store stocks the Fiebing line of products in the horse saddle area. The saddle soap was about $4 and the neatsfoot oil was about $5. And I think both will be more product than I will ever use.



The front and back of the strop after cleaning. The saddle soap worked much like shoe polish. I wet a clean cloth (old t-shirt, I believe) got some soap on it and cleaned off both sides.



After the strop dried I took another cloth and put a small dot of neatsfoot oil on it. With this one dot I covered the entire side of the strop which was so dry.



Here is that same side after two applications of oil over two days. Between the oil and rubbing out wrinkles with my fingers this side of the strop is as smooth as the other honing surface. Well, not as smooth because the other side is the finer honing surface. But it feels about as smooth.

I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. After two more days the strop has absorbed the oil and the surface looks less saturated with oil than this last picture shows. I think this strop is ready for use!

You can get too much oil on the strop. I have one that oils my razors as I strop. As soon as the surface starts to warm up the strop sweats oil. It still functions but isn't really ideal. I hope you stop a little sooner.

Originally Posted by RezDog

You can get too much oil on the strop. I have one that oils my razors as I strop. As soon as the surface starts to warm up the strop sweats oil. It still functions but isn't really ideal. I hope you stop a little sooner.

For those interested, this article on getting neatsfoot oil OUT of leather may be helpful, if like RezDog and myself you have applied too much of it and it is leaving residue on your razor when you strop: How To Undo A Mistake With Neatsfoot Oil? - How Do I Do That? - Leatherworker.net