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.
Thanks all for the feedback. I think I'll continue with what I've been doing: just using the leather strop. The jute looks awfully coarse and seems like it could do more harm than good. I'll use leather until it seems the blade needs a touch up, then try it. If it works, fine. If not, I would have had to touch it up with stones anyway.
what is the best way to break in a strop? i guess it didn't know it way necasary and just used my linen without any breaking in.Quote:
Originally Posted by PuFFaH
Read Iwasaki's honing manual (I think I saw it in there), or Kanoyama's instructions for breaking in the linen/fabric side and break it in.... With a hammer! Soak it, slam it, but make sure you protect the leather well against soapy water and splashing. I would probably use fabric softener, too.
I have jute available near me and I will try it. I've actually been meaning to post a discussion related to jute, because I can't seem to find cotton webbing anywhere, in a suitable size. Thanks for creating this thread!
Srdjan, I look forward to hearing your results with jute!
I have been experimenting with various genuine linen webbings, never felt the need to break them in.
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/16/01...ae6e351e3a.jpg
Coming soon....
I've made linen type jute strops before.
Wash it a few times in the washing machine to clear the residue out. Put it in a delicate's bag or it will tangle badly
Next let it air dry spread out.
Now go to a 2by4 wooden board and do a hide flesher stroke back and forth on both sides until the surface turns silken to your touch.
Now singe it lightly to reduce the fluff and cut it to the length you desire. You are done ,congratulations. :)
Burnishing till polished is the basic way but as mentioned you can take the risky route of washing in warm water and soap to shrink the weave before hand. Setting the weave firm with soap lather dressing is another option as well as the wax dressing method.
I'm sure these methods have been discussed on this forum.
Don't be fooled by the roughness thinking it will dull the edge....it won't.
The jute is still WAY softer than the hardened high carbon steel of your razor. I would break it in as several have stated & use it!
Slawman
I washed it in laundry detergent, then put some hair conditioner on it (turns out, we don't use dedicated softener in our house). It got a lot softer. It will make a great addition to my leather strops, I'm sure.
I'm constrained by the fact that the leather and jute of my strop are sewn together. Will have to take a more hands on approach to conditioning the jute than washing machine [emoji6]
FYI, I was contacted by Shane of Flaquito Leather (on Etsy) who said the jute on the strops he makes doesn't really need any break in other than just daily use. He uses one pretty regularly in his rotation of strops. He says he doesn't feel it would harm my razor at all & believes the jute works just as well as the cotton options. So I'll start giving it a try and see how it turns out.
If anyone is interested in a source for custom strops, you might check out Flaquito Leathers (I have no connection with FL, so this is just a personal recommendation).
I’ve never used a Jute strop but have and use a HEMP strop. I do not see where it would be much different. The HEMP strop was made by our own Kelly “nun2sharp” and works excellent.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/9N8UYWi.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/N4XrFM1.jpg[/IMG]
BTW, I replaced my Kanoyama linen with Kelly’s HEMP Strop….. puff, puff, give.
Mike
Interesting: I have been contemplating replacing my Kanayama coton strop with a flax linen strop. Linen works so much better than cotton. Flax, jute and hemp have one thing in common: they are bark fibers. Cotton is a seed fluff fiber. In my opinion cotton is to soft for a strop.Quote:
Originally Posted by MODINE
All you folks replacing your Kanoyama cotton strops, contact me if you need to properly dispose of them [emoji23]
You really like the Kanayama cotton strops? IMHO they are mediocre. Mine had one or 2 knots on the front of the strop that I had to push to the other side.
I think I would find some use for them.. pastes, Crox, or just plain.. should work alright.
I've just received a Kanayama 60000 and was very interested to see what they used for the canvas component. On careful side-by-side examination, it is almost indistinguishable from that used on my SRD 3" English bridle leather strop - except for the color. The surface is very even and regular; it sounds and feels just like the SRD in use. I definitely prefer these two canvas strops to the hard linen on my Tony Miller strop, which is too slick and fast for my liking.