Thread: Vintage shell strop, worth restoring?

Strop is about 2.5" wide with 16 inches of stropping area if I remember correctly. leather feels nice and does not seem to be dried out or in horrible condition. The thickness of the strop is 3-4mm in most places with 1-2 spots having 2.5mm thickness. I like a thin strop although this strop has some nicks in it that I didn't see from photos so not 100% sure how to go along with fixing and if it is worth. I took the metal clip holding the linen and leather off and cleaned it up a bit. Right now I have the leather sitting under some heavy books (was shipped rolled up but still relatively flat).

Also the linen I think will be easy to clean/ but not going to go through effort unless I decide to get leather in good stropping condition

Link to more pictures/close up of nicks https://imgur.com/a/2PJd1QK





Currently have Kiwi Mink oil (used it for leather cleats I had). Feel like I will need saddle soap but not sure what else

Looks in pretty good condition.

Linen: wash with fingernail brush and dish soap. Gentle circular strokes with plenty of water. Rinse thoroughly. If you want it whitened I then soak in oxy clean and rinse well. Dry flat between layers of bath towel.

Leather: If dirty clean with saddle soap. Dry flat. Treat with neetsfoot oil. After a day wipe off any excess oil. Do not over do it with the oil. Less is more. Just rub it in good with fingers.

Nicks can be removed or lessened with sand paper. 800 grit finish with 2000 grit

Watch out on the saddle soap. Too much water at once may ruin it.
Some extremely good advise in the OP of this thread....
https://straightrazorpalace.com/stro...dry-dirty.html

Thanks for the link sharptonn

Tom has restored quite a few so take his advice and go slow

I have ruined a strop in the past, learned a lot, and taken Euclid440's advise and have had good luck.
The light water sits there and the leather turns whitish.
Looks dry! ...Ready for a little oil wipe.
It truly takes a long, long time. Results are worth it, IMO.

Something I have learned with this. If you think it's almost there, it's there!
A threshold crossed is hard, if not impossible, to come back from.
Esp as using Neetsfoot. I prefer the mink oil. Slower, yet more forgiving. More on the back and very little on the front.

Mink oil sans silicons is the best, IMO. All-natural!
(Or pretty-much. Preservatives, etc are added to any of this stuff. Through research, silicone seems not advisable for strops. )

Thought I would add an update on the strop progress. The top two thirds of the strop feel perfect although the bottom where there were a few scratch marks will still pull some on the micro fiber rag. Might do a tad bit more sanding there but pretty happy with how rest of strop came along. Also a King Pelican strop I ordered awhile ago finally came in. It looks like it was NOS and someone spilled something on the leather sadly, but I got it for 30$ shipped so I not complaining. Linen on the strop seems nice and I have the leather under heavy books right now to flatten it out a bit. Might lightly sand over stains and see what happens but mostly got this for the linen/kingpelican logo.

Pictures to both strops

https://imgur.com/a/0iyDahZ

I'm a big fan of saddle soap.....for saddles and very tough leather ONLY. That is what it is designed for. Water and leather don't mix except very tough hard leather. They have leather cleaners and conditioners containing no water and Ph balanced. Bick makes a great line and their cleaner works great.

Euclid440's write up is great. My favorite part was his advice to take it slow if the strop is dry, it took years to dry and it will take time to come back. Out of the 5 strops I brought back the one took from September till March. After that you could run the microfiber cloth without catching. I am not a patient man but those strops are teaching me patience.

Indeed. This is true.
Kindof miss Marty. Need to give him a shout.