Thread: Need advice re: strop maintenance

Only thing I can add is that less is more often more when it comes to putting oils, leather conditioners, or anything greasy on your strop. Chances are your strop has a fairly heavy draw already, without adding gunk to it. As to nicks, lets just say that if you can strop around the nicks and sand them back where possible, then they can remain serviceable. If you have hammered it, practice your stroke on it and start over. We've all done it.

One way to ensure that you do not harm the stropping surface of the strop is to add at least the majority of the "oils, leather conditioners, or anything greasy" onto the back of your strop. They will soak into the leather but will not alter the strop's draw.

Sanded down the nicks, wiped the strop with a damp cloth and settled down and concentrated on what I'm doing. I appreciate the support, and I am hopefully getting used to this process. Blade is sharp. Face isn't bleeding. All seems well.

As long as it shaves well then your stropping is ok, or at the very least not harming it.

So far I haven't done any "conditioning" to either of my strops.

I've played around with mine, but it was a fairly inexpensive one - which means the surface came treated. Left it very slick with no draw. First thing I tried was cleaning with shave soap once in a while. Interesting, but this will only exacerbate the slickness issue I was having.

The next was to 'break it in' with a beer bottle, more shave soap, and finally some 600 grit sand paper. Soap up the strop, lay it out on a table, run the glass bottle back & forth a few times. Wash off, wrap bottle in sand paper, and scuff up the surface some. This resulted in a fairly heavy draw - I liked this quite a bit. I also had some nicks that needed addressing, so the sanding was dual purpose. Cut off any flaps, then sanded down the remnants with the same paper.

If I recall correctly, I goofed that up by continuing to treat the strop with shave soaps, which seem to leave a slick film in their wake despite my best efforts to wash it clean. There was also a good amount of palm rubbing, but after about a year the surface wound up slick again.

So I scrubbed it really good. Hot water, dish scrubber, and saddle soap this time. Little bit of kneading the leather, then buffing it with my boot brush before setting it out to dry. I hit it with Ballistol while it was still damp and let it sit for 2 days. Just a light coat, nothing heavy, and the leather drank it right up. I was expecting a slick draw with the ballistol in there, but to my surprise it felt grippy like when I first sanded it a year ago. Maybe even more so.

For my preferences, the saddle soap + ballistol treatment is the winner. We'll see how often that's necessary. For now I'm kind of listening to what the strop, or more accurately the draw thereof, tells me. If it stays nice and grippy I'm not screwing with it.

Marshal,
If you are happy with the heavier draw, and have taken steps to increase it through adding stuff to it, then good for you. If you ever get a chance to get a horse butt, (Shell cordovan's like Miller's, walkin' horse, Westholme, Scrupleworks and lastly Kanayama's) Most of them are seriously light draw, and seriously expensive, meaning you don't want to be a little hesitant in your stropping technique or you will cut the strop and the more costly the strop the more pain you can feel! My everyday strop is a Kanayama #70000, and I have not put anything on it and I will never do anything to it other than a palm rub once a week. simply, it's the finest strop I've used. Maybe the light draw won't suit some, but I went from a solid draw Latigo six months ago, and it didn't take long to love the light draw. (Touch wood I've not nicked it). So, if you have a Latigo or other steerhide strops, most of those have pretty heavy draws already, so just go easy on the use of gunk, as yor wrist will cramp up if you do a 100 laps on it....

What about the maintenance of "peach skin" strop (suede leather)? I do not dare putting any grease on this kind of leather.

Keep it clean, by wiping with a damp paper towel or micro fiber. You can add oil from the back side, if needed. Do so sparingly, just a few drops on a paper towel, then work into the leather.

You can get that finish, or similar on smooth leather, by dampening the leather and running a card scraper on the surface, very lightly or a large flat edged sharp knife. at 90 degrees to the leather.

Then burnish the surface smooth-er, with a piece of brown paper bag wrapped around a small block of wood. Rub vigorously on the surface to get the finish you want. Brown paper is mildly abrasive.

Try this on an old leather belt or leather scrap, to see if that is the finish you want. It will have a bit more draw.

Bobski - I haven't really added anything to the strop, just sanded away the treated stuff so im down to bare leather, cleaned it, and put a little ballistol on there. Which is kind of like mink or neatsfoot oil, just synthetic. The leather soaks it up and it keeps water from damaging it.

I figure the draw it has, is simply what steer hide should have naturally. And the reason I like that is when the stropping stroke is good, the strop let's me know by 'tugging back' so to speak. When it's bad, I know because the razor zips along with no resistance.

Perhaps with another year or so of practice I can graduate to one of those pricey stops you speak of bobski. But not before I'm more confident in my stropping ability.