Cleaning mould off my strop

After a protracted period of rain and flooding here in Australia, I had occasion to go to my shed and found, much to my chagrin, that my black latigo strop is covered in black/green mould. :cry::cry:
In my defence, I usually have placed in back into the plastic cover that it came in after using it but this time I forgot and it has now come back to bite me.
I cannot replace the leather because Star Shaving is no longer in existence, I believe.
Any suggestions as to how to clean it up or should I look at just replacing it?
TIA

Man that sucks. I think I would wash it well with saddle soap and let it dry well In the sun.

I think Paul's suggestion is probably a good way to proceed. I had one of mine start to mould up a bit recently but it was pretty minor: it was in the wardrobe rather than in a shed. I applied a vinegar soaked cloth to the affected area.I meant to give it a neatsfoot oil treatment afterwards but forgot and when next I looked at it all seemed well anyway. Keep us posted but maybe see if any other suggestions come in.

I don't like saddle soap. It's made for thick, tough rough duty leather like...saddles for instance. It also requires water which is an enemy of most leather. There are products for leather care containing materials that will clean and protect the leather and that's what I would use.

Check out the Bicks line of products or leatherique which is very expensive but works great.

You can apply 70% Isopropyl alcohol to a strop with no ill affect. It should kill most molds and clean it as well.
I use a paper towel folded up to a small square the turn the bottle upside down in a few spots next to each other then wipe entire strop. It dries very quickly but I normally let it rest before using.
It will make it a little faster in use.

I would clean it with saddle soap or something to clean leather shoes with. After that I would use a leather conditoner to nourish the leather. I would let it dry slowly, not in the sun. Drying too quickly might cause cracks or wrinkles in the leather.
If you get wrinkles you can iron the leather with a wet tea towel between iron and leather. Start at lowest heat and work your way up the heat ladder slowly and checking the results of every step before you increase the heat.

You might go full Iwasaki on it (see his book chapter on barbering).

Wash it in gasoline - OUTSIDE AWAY FROM YOUR HOUSE - use gloves, and I’d probably rub it with a sacrificial microfiber cloth. Then wash it in warm soapy water 2-3 times, and rinse it in clean water 2-3 times.

If you don’t weight it, it will curl when it dries as Iwasaki says, so dry it between 2 flat boards

Once that you have a clean, un-moldy strop, you can decide how to proceed. I’d probably block sand it with 600 and 100 grit paper, then rub with small amounts of neatsfoot oil (since it is latigo) over several weeks until you get it back in original condition.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stoneandstrop

You can apply 70% Isopropyl alcohol to a strop with no ill affect. It should kill most molds and clean it as well.
I use a paper towel folded up to a small square the turn the bottle upside down in a few spots next to each other then wipe entire strop. It dries very quickly but I normally let it rest before using.
It will make it a little faster in use.

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I happened to have some Isopropyl alchohol. I keep 50% in the bathroom and 99% downstairs, I use it to clean my fingers before i take my sugar.

I wiped my strops down with it on a cotton wool ball using the 50% and then palm rubbed them after a few minutes. I didn't have mould but felt that they could benefit from a clean. I even used it on my leather CroX stop and managed to remove most of it, it went almost back to black so I applied a fresh coating of CroX.

I have nice clean stops now and I like the alcohol better than a damp cloth.

Glad you are happy with it.
The only drawback is it will make the strop a little faster, which I like anyway.
Its a good solution for an over oiled strop as well but must be repeated until the speed stays where you want it.

You need to kill the mould which saddle soap won't do.
Metho or 100% alcohol, if you have a sympathetic chemist nearby, is a better option.
Spray it on lightly & wipe it off as many times as needed. If the spores have really taken hold you might be dead in the water but good luck.

Ah, Star Shaving. I had a Big Daddy strop for quite a few years, and the first strop I made was essentially a shameless copy of it. You can of course save the Chicago screws and the D rings, and simply cut another piece of veg tanned cowhide, put it all together, and there you go, risen from the dead, FrankenBigDaddy! ZombieStrop! Another thing you might consider is using roo hide. Apparently it works quite well. I never tried a roo strop but those who have, seem pretty happy with it. Oil tanned leather is almost as good as veg tanned. Latigo is more or less an oil tanned leather, after all. Chrome tanned leather might disappoint.

But you can probably bring your old leather back to life. I have never seen saddle soap and a soft toothbrush cause any real damage to a piece of leather. Even Iwasaki-San's gasoline treatment is worth considering. As is, the leather is ready for the trash, right? So what do you got to lose? And it's not like you will be doing it every week or month or even every year. You will probably never do it again. So I say if you have an attachment to the old strop, knuckles in the grass, gitter done! I would proceed thisly:

1. A preliminary scrub with toothbrush and saddle soap, rinse well, dry in the shade, laying on a flat object, turning occasionally as it slowly dries. You need most of the water out for the next step but if it starts to curl, immediately segue into the next step before it stiffens into a warped, curly board.

2. Treatment with gasoline, naptha, dry cleaning fluid, acetone, any solvent that will dissolve and displace water, and in turn, evaporate, leaving little or no residue. Soak, agitate, roll out with a rolling pin or a bottle, work the solvent in and out of the leather. This should pretty much kill any mold or fungus in the leather, too, though you could consider adding a fungicide treatment. Soak for an hour in clear water, pour off the water, repeat.

3. In a double boiler, melt a chunk of beeswax about the size of a golf ball. Add a tablespoon of pure neatsfoot oil. Add a few drops of boiled linseed oil. Not too much, as it hardens when it oxidizes, glazes the leather, and makes it crack. Mix it all well. Remove from heat, and as it cools, thin it down with about twice the volume of acetone. Mix, mix, mix. It will be really hard to mix good. I find a small and expendable wire whip is about as good a tool as there is, for that. Oh, watch your eyes. Goggles are a good idea with all that thrashing and splashing to get it mixed up. This is your basic witches brew for treating starving leather.

4. As the leather dries, brush your brew on, front and back. lightly. Rub the hair side (slick side) vigorously with a bottle, using a lot of pressure. This compresses and burnishes the surface of the leather and gives it a vaguely Cordovan feel and look. What you are doing is replacing the solvent with water, then gradually replacing the water with neatsfoot oil, linseed, and beeswax. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

5. Next day, rub some more, without adding any more secret brew. The strop is now over-oiled. That's okay. Tomorrow is another day. Hang it where air can circulate around it, not in the sun and not in an excessively dry nor damp environment.

6. The NEXT day, bury the leather in sawdust or clay type kitty litter or garage floor oil absorbent. Take it out every day, brush it off, rub the strop by hand, re-bury it. Do this for a week.

7. Remove the leather, brush it good, wipe it down with a dry soft rag and then a damp one. Sprinkle a few drops only, of neatsfoot into your damp rag and rub some more. Finish by rubbing with the palm of your hand. Reassemble your strop. Soften some beeswax and rub it on your palm and then rub the strop down again. You are trying to transfer only a trace of beeswax to the leather. Strop, and see how you like it. If you want a stickier draw, repeat with the beeswax a few times over the next few weeks. For a faster draw, just leave it alone, and use it a lot. Or you could maybe rub it down with the absorbent a few times and skip the beeswax when you hand rub it clean.

That's an awful lot of bother for a simple piece of veg tanned cowhide that you can probably replace for about $15. But apart from the aggressive treatment with saddle soap and solvent, this is more or less how I treat a piece of leather that I will use to make a strop. Sometimes the results are underwhelming but usually it makes for a very nice strop piece. My favorite strop is one I made using that method and I like it about as much or more than my Kanayama.

Remember that most of the substances named above are flammable. Just sayin. And the State of California has probably declared them to be carcinogenic.