I just made myself a strop and my lack of knowledge is now staring me in the face. What is the proper procedure for prepping a strop for use? If you can help me, I would surely appreciate it. Thanks.
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I just made myself a strop and my lack of knowledge is now staring me in the face. What is the proper procedure for prepping a strop for use? If you can help me, I would surely appreciate it. Thanks.
Congrats on making a strop!
Have a look at this article from the Wiki, it should be of some help:
Strop treatment and repair - Straight Razor Place Wiki
Any chance of some pics of your work? :)
It would help if you could give us a bit more info about what kind of leather you used.
In general with a new ready made strop you don't need to use anything as the strop has been treated.
Mostly rubbing the strop with your hands is enough and some even use the tinniest amount of neats foot oil but in general really not needed, especially if it's a brand new strop.
Follow Max's advice. You needn't do anything at this point except rub the palm of your hand lengthwise, approx. 15-20 times, along the leather before stropping your razor on it. That should transfer enough of your body's own oil as well as heat the leather so that your strop will do what it was made to do; namely, maintain the sharpness of your str8 razor's blade.
I've read far too many posts here at SRP from members who applied way too much oil to a new strop, then had to find a way to remove most of it; and that's a real PITA.
Any chance you could post some pics and tell us a little about how you built the strop? I know there's a couple of threads about that but it's always nice and interesting to see the different methods and materials used.