Thread: Fire hose strop cleaning

It cleaned up pretty well. Multiple soakings with oxyclean, water, and scrubbing. Pretty soft now. Not sure if it improves my edges or not. Time will tell

Iron it!

The linen fire hose is not my fave. Rough stuff.
Sometimes you get lucky, but it is not from the fire truck dirty stuff.
It's from the coiled take-outs from the hotel/building fire hoses.

Best old linen candidates. Great luck with the later Poly versions.

Originally Posted by sharptonn

Iron it!

The linen fire hose is not my fave. Rough stuff.
Sometimes you get lucky, but it is not from the fire truck dirty stuff.
It's from the coiled take-outs from the hotel/building fire hoses.

Best old linen candidates. Great luck with the later Poly versions.

The take-outs tend to be much cleaner, just light dirt from age and storage vs. ground and fire dirt. I still prefer flat webbing but the heavy hose does have a different feel to it due to the weight and thickness albeit rougher.


I have not liked any poly or synthetic cloth materials, tried poly webbing, tried nylon, just not for me. No idea how the modern poly firehose would feel or work.

I have restored several old-stock boarhide strops and pair them with poly fire-hose.
When it's out of date, it cannot be installed, so I bought some NOS.
Single-use, it has a thin latex membrane on the inside.
Definitely zippy, but not as much as the linen stuff. Thinner when ironed flat as well.

Some don't like the feel, but it is very effective..

Looks good. With all the cleaning i bet it is soft. Mine is. I think its too soft. But it still has a use. I use mine mainly for drying an edge because its so soft. Im afraid its not agressive enough for scuffing the edge. But im just guessing.

Looks a lot better. I imagine brushing is crucial to getting them cleaned thoroughly. Certainly don't want your razor finding any grit!
I wonder how a cleaning wand at the car wash would work.

Also, where did you find this? I would love to find some flax linen hose.

So you use Dawn dish soap and scrub it with a nylon brush.
Rinse inside and out.
Oxyclean paste and scrub again.
Then into the dryer after you rinsed and scrubbed again with nylon brush.
Hello Jeff, mine never got bright white. It is clean and heavy duty thick.
Use a tablespoon of bleach to a laundry tub full of water. let it soak.
If it fails I stand behind this product. I have 60 feet of it. We can test 1 foot sections all day.

I usually soak it in chemicals, the bleaching agent helps the most. And then you need to warm it in a hot place so that it is better cleaned

The trick to cleaning firehose is the rinse. You must soak it to get the grit and soap from between the fibers.

I soak in a 5-gallon plastic pale with a mild fabric cleaner, (dollar store Woolite knockoff) for 24 hours, then scrub with a stiff brush, a stripping or fingernail brush.

Then a 24-hour soak in Vinegar and warm water 3-4 cups to 5 gallons. The trick is to get all the soap and dirt out of the fibers, Vinegar will do it. Soap in the fibers will retain grit and attract dust.

Keep away from the harsh cleaners and bleach.

You are done when your rinse water is crystal clear after a 24-hour soak. Flax Firehose is a great to strop between hones or before your final laps, finish on clean leather.

If you roll the strop on a hanging roller while damp and no longer rock hard it will loosen up and stretch a bit. A 20-inch piece can shrink a half to one inch but rolling can stretch it back out. For vintage linen I roll and hang with a weight clamped to the end 4-5 lbs. while drying will stretch the weave back to original size. Keep measuring while hanging to dry.

It can take well over a week to clean a hose that was never used but stored in a fire hose box. A hose that has been used is full of grit that will never come out. One piece of grit can trash an edge.

Originally Posted by DartPraidon

I usually soak it in chemicals, the bleaching agent helps the most. And then you need to warm it in a hot place so that it is better cleaned

Just don't use very strong soap solutions with strong chemicals because there will be nothing left of your belt. Be careful, and it is better to just give it to the cleaning service, I usually do this when I do not know how to take care of certain objects in production. I give things to the company https://mymaid.co.nz/house-cleaning/wellington/ they quickly help to clean up the most terrible pollution. We have a lot of problems with cleanliness and this method we save ourselves a little, otherwise we can not cope.