Thread: Illinois 827 Russian Strop

I use and have used these for quite a long time I think I have bought 10 or so...They tend to be my "give to a Newb strop" I use them for pastes also, and after honing un-pasted...

First I wouldn't advise much of anything other than your palm, and if it gets dry use A LITTLE Neatsfoot on a rag or on your palm..

I would not use a bottle on an #827 basically that smooths a strop and doesn't work good on the #827..

Out of all the ones I have bought, I finally only on one, had to sand off the nap a bit, use a sanding block and 400 grit and sand lightly that should only take off the excess nap...

The linen works really, really, well as is, but it takes about 3 months of everyday use to break in...

I only use mine for after honing so I do 50/100, but when I was using them for everyday, I used 25/50 but that is personal so figure it out for yourself

Originally Posted by airbus001

I bought an Illinois 827 Russian strop a couple of days ago, and was hoping forum members could advise me whether or not the strop need any prep work. I have been using strop, and prep it by just rubbing my palm on the stop as advised in the wiki.

One thing that I did notice is the strop leather has a grain, and when I strop against the grain little leather pieces stick up, is this normal? Should I sand away these pieces of leather?

Also is the linen side any good? What I normally do is 10 linen passes, and then 50 leather passes. What have people found to work best for them(carbon steel blades)?

Thanks

Just use it as it is.

The grain of the leather is normal on a new strop.
After time it will soften/vanish/smooth out. By time I am saying six
months to a year. You can apply small amount (two drops) of non abrasive
strop dressing to the palm of your hand once week/ twice a month
and rub that in. Lacking a special purpose strop dressing, you can also
use two drops of lanolin hand cream or neatsfoot oil. Again apply to your
hand and rub the strop... Some folk have lots of skin oil and some
folk have very little.... If you do not leave fingerprints on glass you
are one of those that should apply a couple of drops leather friendly
dressing to your hand to rub in.

The linen side is great but takes time to break in. The stiffness of
the strop fabric keeps it from flexing too much and acts as a backing
for the leather keeping the leather from flexing as well. You can lightly
sand the canvas with a very fine wet/dry 2K grit 3M paper if you are
impatient. I confess to applying 0.25 micron diamond spray to my Illinois
canvas while I broke mine in, I did not need to. Now I just rub the canvas
with a damp wash cloth or paper towel once in a while when it gets too grey.

EDIT: on the leather side the nubs will be pushed over and flattened
by the spine while stropping. The result is that the edge will touch
a flat smoothed surface. I should also add that the micro amounts
of skin oil or strop dressing will oxidize and give the strop draw. Too
much dressing and it will get slick and oily making it less effective.

I had been trying to get this strop to work for me for a while. I finally decided to use a 400 sanding block to smooth it out a bit. I followed that by 1000 grit sandpaper and then treated it with saddle soap. I immediately saw a huge difference in my razor. It's now finally sharp enough to get a good shave.

Originally Posted by PaulKidd

When I bought my Illinois 827 strop (20 years ago),
I gave it a "quick" break-in treatment:

1) On the linen side, rub in some shaving soap (not
lather) and polish with a glass bottle

2) On the leather side, rub in some commercial strop
dressing or neatsfoot oil (NOT honing paste!), and
polish with a glass bottle

3) Do as nun2sharp says: strop the hell out of it with
the back of a butter knife...limber it up

4) Do as many recommend: each day, run the palm or
the heel of your hand up and down the strop a bunch
of times before stropping your razor.

The 827 has served me well. Just keep it clean and
give it the dressing/oil/polish treatment now and
again, and it should do the same for you.

Paul

Agreed Paul.

Love my #827 - it was recommended to me to apply an initial coat of Fromm's Strop Conditioner...which I did...shed like orange peel for awhile...but is perfect now. The cirium oxide (?) hard linen backing is fantastic...and I find myself using the #827 to strop after a shave, and my SRD Roo Strop before a shave...YMMV...but the #827 is a workhorse...can't go wrong with it IMO.

Is this side of the 827 used for anything? I don't think i'd like to run my razor down it...

Originally Posted by DupreesDiamond

Is this side of the 827 used for anything? I don't think i'd like to run my razor down it...

NOPE! I've used one for around 7 years and wouldn't even consider using it for Anything!

The one thing I did with my 827 that really made it nice (much like Gssixgun did, only he used sandpaper) was use my DMT 325 on the napped surface to reduce the size of the nap and make stropping smoother.

What Gssixgun did not do, and I don't strop as many razors as he does in 3 months, is to also use the DMT 325 on the linen side. Not a lot, just enough to break through that plastic feeling coating on the linen side. Other than that, and the tiniest amount of dressing every few years (I use Fromm dressing myself, about a pea's worth on my hand lightly spread out on the palm, then try to spread it out as even as I can on the strop), all it needs it a bit of hand rubbing when going to use it.

And no, the backside of the leather with that impressed pattern is not meant for use, it's an integral part of "russian" leather manufacturing.

The strop is great for beginners too.... a bad flip of the razor and instead of a major disaster, I found the edge just stopped and didn't knick the strop, nor did the strop damage the edge of the razor.

Lastly, yes... it sounds, feels and looks different depending on which direction your razor is moving, and that is perfectly normal and as it should be.

Regards

Christian

Originally Posted by kaptain_zero

The one thing I did with my 827 that really made it nice (much like Gssixgun did, only he used sandpaper) was use my DMT 325 on the napped surface to reduce the size of the nap and make stropping smoother.
....

Yep if you have a DMT this is a nice but not required trick.
I do like mine.