Originally Posted by
honedright
Don't know about current production linen strops. Back in the day it was recommended to avoid water, as much as possible, on a linen strop because it was well known that linen absorbs a tremendous amount of water which swells the fibers and distorts the stropping surface of the linen. Manufactured linen strops were finished to be as flat and smooth as possible. Cleaning was accomplished by applying some lather then scraping off with the blade of a shears or, another method used alcohol and a cloth. But I never read, outside of this forum, a method that included soaking linen in water. I'd be concerned with ruining the stropping surface, and in 37, or so, years of using a straight, I've never soaked a linen strop, and I never will. I can imagine this getting the linen clean, but does it preserve the stropping quality of the strop?