Thread: Help with linen coating

Finally goty dubl duck strop and have separated the linen and leather. I soaked the linen same as normal aand today cave it a scrub with a nylon brush to get the dirt off. This strop seems to have been completely coated in paste so thick itvwss filling the weave and when I started scrubbing it came out in a chalky powder in the water. The strop under is a greeny color so I am presuming flax line. My problem now is a patchy strop some white from the coat left on it but now clean and some bare linen without sny coating. The best outcome would be to find out what the coating is amd reapply which is why I sm posting. Sny advice fro you strop guru's would deffdefinitely be grest right now. Here's a photo so you can see what I mean. Thanks Ed

Hi,

It does not look like linen to me, more like cotton/canvas, possibly tubular weave.

The green stuff caked on it looks like too much green chrome dioxide.

I would use soap suds and plenty of warm water. Too much or too vigorous use of a scrubbing brush will affect the cotton, giving a bobbly or furry finish, so a gentle kneading is preferred.

You will have to do this a fair number of times - as long as there is a green tinge there will be some abrasive left, but it will be such a small amount that it will barely matter, especially as chrome dioxide is very fine.

Be prepared for the cotton to shrink a bit - using warm rather than hot water followed by slow drying will minimise the effect.

Don't expect miracles ( personally I would throw it).

Good luck,
Neil.

Hi,
Keep scrubbing.
The fabric component is a tubular greenish cotton weave. ( cotton fire hose, without rubber.) That is the one Randydancer is in love with. It was used on quite a few top end strops.

Pasting was done by various folks to save a razor's shaving quality till it would no longer do its job. If you wish to paste it again, there are a few linen pastes still available (Dovo White Paste) This has no abrasive particles.The other no band white tube strop paste is a white oxide paste with a superfine abrasive particles in it; available at times on the 'Bay.

Most are made up of Kaolin Clay, water soluble glue, Bluing, some fatty substance (tallow), and white soap (soft soap), and often the addition of a natural gum ( sap).
Needless to say the usual recipes are for making about a half gallon of the stuff, as I found out. my source was a 1788 treatis which i have since lost.
Abrasives such as diamond powder, talc, ffff emery, rouge, Lead oxide, other oxides, and CBN may be added to the mix after first mixing and settling.

~Richard

Thanks Geezer that gives me a bit more of an idea what might have original been in it. Neil it is a dubl duck linen. It was a silk finish one and was completely white but was a bot dirty and the green is actually where the white coating has come off revealing green linen. It probably wouldn't be that green but it was wet when I took the photo. The white on the strop is the coating still left on it. I added another photo now I've dried it and with the strop. Your input is always greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the new photos! The leather looks to be in great condition just hand rub it for a couple days before using it. You can use the fabric component as you have it. If the coating darkens with use, The original paste was the abrasive one. The darkening is the abrasive removing a fine layer of steel.
~Richard

Use it as it is and see how it works. It's a shame that some of it came off, but I don't see much reason to change it if it still improves a razor.

I don't know what chance you have of making a concoction that will be similar to the original (which has aged a fair amount).

Thanks for the extra info and pictures. I did not know that this Shamrock Brand was a linen strop - I have not seen one photo of the mark with with anything but "Shamrock Brand Fine Weave Silk Finish on it, though I suppose that barbers manuals of the time would serve to identify what Dubl Duck called it.





The following, along with some of the cotton backed strops I have seen (cannot find a pic) are marked with what they are:



Dubl Duck were importers by the way and it is possible that they made nothing at all. But their products were excellent indeed.

What seems clear from this is that we do not have a tubular weave cotton firehose.

The Shamrock brand on the other hand was a firmly established business in Ireland (hence 'shamrock') and they describe this material in one advert as marked and available in 10ft lengths to the public, describing it as 'bleached linen cambric', cambric deriving from the french town where it was originally made in the 1700s. At that time it was made from linen, calendered and glazed, though later on both linen and cotton materials were described as cambric.

Thanks again for correcting me - just goes to show that you learn something everyday and what a fine resource SRP is.

Regards,
Neil

Here's one thing I tried, as suggested by Bart Torfs a few years ago. It works very nicely, although it has been a while (too long) since I tried:

Originally Posted by Bart Torfs at coticule.be

Sidewalk chalk, aka calcium sulfate, aka plaster of Paris, aka gypsum (it's all the same) works [...], as long as you make sure to use white, non-colored quality. The trick is to paint the strop with lather, and rub it with the chalk until the pores are completely clogged. (work it in with your fingers). Dry with a hairdryer. Make your fingers greasy with strop dressing, or with mineral oil, and massage the surface of the strop. Allow to dry overnight. Brush lightly to remove excess dust. This will give you a great surface to strop on, that behaves the same like a linen strop that was filled with a tube of Dovo white (Dovo white Is to be used abundant, the idea is to clog the pores of the fabric).
Kind regards,

Bart.

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

Thanks for the extra info and pictures. I did not know that this Shamrock Brand was a linen strop - I have not seen one photo of the mark with with anything but "Shamrock Brand Fine Weave Silk Finish on it, though I suppose that barbers manuals of the time would serve to identify what Dubl Duck called it.





The following, along with some of the cotton backed strops I have seen (cannot find a pic) are marked with what they are:



Dubl Duck were importers by the way and it is possible that they made nothing at all. But their products were excellent indeed.

What seems clear from this is that we do not have a tubular weave cotton firehose.

The Shamrock brand on the other hand was a firmly established business in Ireland (hence 'shamrock') and they describe this material in one advert as marked and available in 10ft lengths to the public, describing it as 'bleached linen cambric', cambric deriving from the french town where it was originally made in the 1700s. At that time it was made from linen, calendered and glazed, though later on both linen and cotton materials were described as cambric.

Thanks again for correcting me - just goes to show that you learn something everyday and what a fine resource SRP is.

Regards,
Neil

Neil it doesn't state that it is linen but it is exactly the same as a Irish linen that I have except that the Irish linen isn't coated and is white by itself. I assumed and may be wrong that from the colour it was a flax linen that has been coated and impregnated with this dressing and that the dressing itself is what they may be referrinding to as the silk finish. As I said I could be wrong but once the coating of paste is removed it comes up that greeny colour and the weave is revealed