Thread: SRD's Red Latigo back strop material

I have the black latigo in 3", with the webbed fabric and it works great! I have absolutely no complaints and it seems to perform no differently to my other strop which has a linen backing. Unless you feel strongly one way or the other, the webbed fabric will do a very good job.

In terms of pastes, dont paste your main strop. Keep that one totally clean for daily use.

You'll start to need pastes once the razor starts to dull slightly and you need to refresh the edge. You can tell if you need to go to the pasted strop as the razor will start to pull, and wont shave as close as it used to.

The ones people talk about the most are 0.5 and 0.25 micron diamond spray (the 0.25 is the finer one) and 0.5 micron chromium oxide, which comes like a fat green crayon that you rub onto the strop.

If you want a cheap and easy pasted strop, take a flat strip of wood 3" wide and stick some clean denim (from an old pair of jeans) to it. Then just spray on some 0.5 micron diamond spray. I've done this and it works great! You can also oversize it and cut a handle out of the end if you want to.

Heres a link to my pasted strop. I actually made the backing out of a piece of windowsill, but you can use wood or any other material, as long as its flat..!

http://straightrazorpalace.com/honin...-homemade.html

The denim seems to work very well at reducing some of the harshness of the diamond particles. I wouldnt apply diamond spray to leather, as this can make the spray a bit harsh. CrOx works very well on leather though.

You can also buy strops with different backings for use with pastes. Have a look in the classifieds, Straight Razor Designs, Tony Millers site and others all sell excellent strops.

Good luck!

EDIT: I've just spotted that you have an Illinois strop. You could order some CrOx with your new strop, and then paste the Illinois? That would work very well! Just dont use it daily, as you can have too much of a good thing..!