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I have often heard about using lather on strops in old texts. Is this sound? How is it to be done and sometimes in combination with hot glass bottle burnishing of the leather. I am curious if this is good or bad and what it is supposed to do and why?
i say Dont DO It, but ill wait for others to respond
Lol I wouldn't dare unless I understood if it was applicable in certain situations.
I am curious to see this. I have seen it as well but I have never did anything besides palm rub and my strops work fine.
razorfaust,
In the days (ca. 80 odd years ago) when this was suggested in shaving manuals etc., the shaving soaps were over-fatted. Very few shaving soaps these days are over fatted, so any effect from the lathering is reduced.
If you have a modern strop, I would shy away from doing anything to it apart from palm rubbing, and perhaps the tiniest amount of neatsfoot oil.
If it is a spare strop, you don't mind sacrificing, then have at it and let us know what the results are :)
Have fun !
Best regards
Russ
Using High Tallow content soap,the idea was to clean and rehydrate the leather.
I do it on my vintage shells every couple yrs,works very well for me.
I have used Mitchell's Wool fat on a couple of strops to clean them. No ill effects yet. Tc
This is one of those things where shaving lore has elevated a practice. Back in the day when most folks were poor you made do with what you had and only spent money where you needed to. So why go out and buy strop treatment when your shave soap will work provided it has a high fat content.
It never really was THE way to protect a strop but has become that way. Use your palms or some of the specialized products that are out there.
My personal view has always been water and most leathers do not go well together.
This is what worried me about the practice in the first place. Seems counter intuitive to add water to a thing most treated with oil but curiosity is strong with me.Quote:
Originally Posted by thebigspendur
I have boiled a filthy antique-ish linen strop with Oxiclean in water three times, rinsed another few times and hung it - dried fine, white and flat.
I have also saddle soaped the bedonkus out of a couple of nasty vintage leather strops (one gone boardy and the other stiff but supple) with stiff brush and enough water to work up a good lather (a couple of times) and wiped them clean with a damp cloth. Each dried flat and, after some had rubbing, both made excellent strops. After working with a lot of hides over the past 35 years I'd say, "There is leather and then there is leather." I would not try this with anything of the I-know-it's-gonna-crack nature. Poorly tanned or very thin stuff, not recommended for water, is pretty obvious when you see it next to premium top grain hide.*
* think saddle grade leather. It'll take butt-sweat, horse sweat, rain, moring dew, cold, hot, abrasion and, if kept clean and supple (with whatever - some guys swear by bear grease, I guess) a little water is a walk in the park.
Getting interesting thanks for all of the input. Please feel free to add any strop conditioning horror stories and or successes.
Linen strops are no problem. Some hot water and soap and a good scrub brush and you can get them looking like new again.
Of course when you have a leather strop with issues like creases that simply won't come out the nuclear option is to saturate it in water then let it air dry slowly and then condition like crazy. Usually the strop will be OK but often times it will dry with seriously bad looking stains in it which are permanent. But that's only used when you are faced with pitching a strop cause it's unusable otherwise. No it's not good for the leather. Kind of like when yer fruit tree has had it you basically poison it and it will produce the best crop ever...then it dies.
From another thread
the following is recommended by Star shaving to help break in a Big Daddy strop,
After I did the soap & bottle trick mine also improved tremulously more than just the hand rubbing.Quote:
For Best Results use water and soap on the leather, such as your shave brush with shave soap. Also use the palm of your hand to rub the leather strop occasionally to help keep the leather pliable. When the leather is not pliable use Neatsfoot oil and when the leather is dirty use Saddle soap. Use a lint roller to keep the Felt strop clean. We have replacement leather or felt for the "OVB" strop if you ever need to replace the leather or felt part of the strop for any reason such as cuts put into leather or felt strop from stropping. That is why we use Chicago screws in making the "OVB" strop so that the strop can be worked on easily if ever needed.
I don't remember getting this information sheet with mine but my nephew got the same info as above from their site when he bought his
Never used anything but hand rubbing on my Roo but
Cheers D
Well I just recovered my first strop I ever bought. My mother was spring cleaning and uncovered it in a box buried deep in the chasms of her garage. I haven't seen this strop since around the mid 80's. It is an Illinois #127 so I ran over there to recover it. I wish I could find the little 4/8 cv heljestrand that I bought which started all this fascination with straights but not yet. So to get back to the point I scrubbed the dirty nasty little strop with saddle soap as some good people have mentioned and sanded all the horrible nicks I made in it and i think after some neatsfoot oil treatment after its good and dry it might be ready to rock.Attachment 197274
