I'm a newbie to straight razor shaving and got a strop as a Christmas gift. The back strop is made of jute and it seems awfully coarse to me. Am I being overly cautious or is jute OK to strop on?
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I'm a newbie to straight razor shaving and got a strop as a Christmas gift. The back strop is made of jute and it seems awfully coarse to me. Am I being overly cautious or is jute OK to strop on?
I have never heard of jute as a second material. I must say while looking for flax linen and hemp webbing I have seen jute and wondered about it. I have some hemp webbing waiting for me to do some experiments with for making it into strops. It will be interesting what others have to say. Where did the strop come from?
Well if it doesn't work out...
Roll it up and smoke it [emoji23]
Rez
I dont see why jute wouldn't work either.
Give it a go and let the rest of us know how it goes.
Is that strop a new one or vintage?
I would not use the Jute, you would be better off with denim from an old pair of jeans or a car seat belt. My honest opinion.
If you do use it, I would use butterfly soft stropping motions with near zero pressure.
Strop came from a shop on Etsy, Flaquito leathers and is a new one. I'm hesitant to use it as I just git my new Dovo Bismarck in from SRD and don't want to mess it up. I figured this is a time to rely on orhers' experience instead of experimenting. [emoji6]
If you are worried about it then to start with just strop on the leather. There are several guys here that only strop on leather and have no issues, so I think it is a safe bet. You can experiment later on the jute, perhaps when you have more than one razor. Also as being new to stropping it may be impossible to know if you messed up an edge from poor stropping or from the jute.
Yes, I've only been using the leather. I do have a second straight (my first, a vintage blade honed by SRD). I'm still building my shave skills though so am not willing to experiment with the jute yet. I know leather alone will serve me for quite a while. My other straights are Rolls Razors and I've been stropping them on leather only for months with no problem.
It will work OK but will need breaking in just like any other linen/canvas strop.
As PuFFaH said.