Thread: Onto strops now..

As some of you know, my trials with a strop were mostly unsuccesful. I kinda agreed with Howard on the minimal needed strokes after a honing, like maybe 3 at the most. Well check this out, awhile back I bought 5lbs of vegi-tanned thin leather scrap. I've been messing around with it on pastes and sprays and powders for my knives. But when I tried a piece raw, the shiny side, it always took my edge away with anything over 3 passes. So, today I got my 2ft. piece of 100% flax linen in the mail, and I'm thinking, well I don't strop so what am I going to do with this thing? Looking at my piece of leather, I glanced over at my bottle of mineral oil and said well maybe if I slightly moisten the leather with some mineral oil it will come to life. Hah! sure as hell, a very light coating of mineral oil on the leather is all it needed, I guess it was too dry or something. Add in the flax linen today and my newly dressed leather piece and I have to say, very very nice. Seems to be what I was missing to be able to make multiple passes on my face without any irritation. So, just a cool revelation I thought I would share!

If the leather doesn't have sufficient draw it will have very little effect on the edge. As you discovered the leather was obviously too dry to produce any draw and just a few drops of oil fixed the problem. Neets foot oil is best but mineral oil works just fine too.

Now you can really begin enjoying your shaves! Happy Shaving!

Draw is just a physical characteristic. It has little to do with functionality of the strop. All quality strops do the same thing whether they have draw in spades or no draw at all. Most Horse and Cordovan strops have little or no draw and they work just fine.