Thread: Strop Maintenance (Newspaper and bend)

Hi everybody,

When moving, I carefully packed my strop in newspaper and rolled it (not tightly) around something before putting it in a box.
And that wasn't good enough. There's plenty of ink that made it to the leather, and there's still a bend. That doesn't look too bad in practice though.




My first question... should I bother cleaning it up? How? Baby wipes?
Second question... should I bother flattening it? How? Dictionaries?

P.S. I sort of know the answer for the linen side... I've had the dishwasher-and-dictionaries route suggested to me.

maybe hang some weight on the bottom or use it as normal and it and it will right itself

I have had a few of my strops get out of shape before too... I just take the strop apart and lay the leather on a hard flat surface and grabbed a number of heavy hard cover dictionaries to put on the strop for a few days... Liked to use one.book and with pressure run it up and down the strops every once in a while.. Worked great both times..

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I agree with TCM. Take it apart and flatten the leather with an even, heavy weight from one end to the other. You may want to put a piece of plastic bag between the books (or whatever weight you use) and the leather to eliminate any more color/dirt transfer.

A danger of using it as is is that it will twist some while stropping and either mess up your edge, or cane you to slice the strop. Don't ambarass me by asking how I know, but I do.

The hanging weigh idea may work but it will take considerable weight. Laying flat with weight has not been as effective for me as I find with most materials, leather, cloth, even thin metal a material needs to be bent beyond the desired shape before it will spring back to where to want it. I often coax the leather into the shape I desire by over bending a bit but no so far that you kink the leather surface away from the deeper layers and completely ruin it.

You can wash the cloth. If cotton it may or may not get a little stiff but will soften again. Linen will get rock hard when wet but will also soften again once dry. In either case it will shrink a bit and will wind up shorter than your leather section.

Do not worry about the newspaper ink on the strop. Although it may mar the appearance of the leather, it will not harm the performance. In fact, it might improve it. Many people strop on folded newspaper because the pigment in the inks are effective stopping abrasives.

I defer to Tony Miller who knows strops infinitely better than I. He's so knowledgeable and good that I own and use one of his for every SR shave!

Take his advice!!

if the ink is a problem for you,, just use lighter fluid on a clean microfiber cloth,, dont soak it,, but wipe carefully.. it will clean it. or see if Ballistrol will get it out, but lighter fluid has removed some pretty bad stuff from a couple of my stropos

Originally Posted by RayClem

Do not worry about the newspaper ink on the strop. Although it may mar the appearance of the leather, it will not harm the performance. In fact, it might improve it. Many people strop on folded newspaper because the pigment in the inks are effective stopping abrasives.

Good point !

Iwasaki recommended that you wet the strop, then lay it between two flat boards and let it dry. I’ve done this with old strops and it works. A little extra weight on the top board will help.

Cheers, Steve