Thread: Is draw important?

That is a good question, and one that I often wonder about. I have many strops, including the one's Jimmy mentioned, Tony Miller's Latigo, Lot's and Lot's of draw, almost feels like the blade sticks to it, and His Horsehide, which is absolutely beautiful, and has no draw, almost has a slick feel to it...


I sometimes use a strop with heavy draw in conjuction with a strop with no draw, kinda like a one two punch, or the best of both worlds..Lately, I've been picking one strop and doing 30 linen/canvas and 60 leather with great results......As I said, I have many, many strops, some with lot's of draw, some with none, and some inbetween. I haven't noticed any difference in my shaves...

As Jimmy mentioned, The Barber's of old often used strops with no draw, like the Cordovan leather...some had what you call a Scotch Shell, which was some type of coating over the leather, like a clear varnish or something...Talk about no draw, Absolutely none, The blade literally flys across it...

One thing I won't do, is alter any strop by applying various compounds to it.
I rub them with the palm of my hand, that's it...I'm not talking about restoring vintage strops, or cleaning strops, and I'm not talking about pastes, That's fine..I prefer paddles to do that..

I'm talking about oiling or soaping up a perfectly good strop to increase draw....I don't think that increasing draw in such a manner is that important or will make a huge difference. I've seen beautiful pieces of leather, nice strops destroyed...I saw a really nice English Bridle strop that was sanded...? Why would you do that?...If your truly not happy with your strop, Don't alter it, Sell it, and buy another....My two cents...

Based on my own experience draw has nothing to do with the performance result at all. I have several strops and some have draw to varying degrees and some have none. Though they all feel different in the end they all do the same exact job, no better or worse. The only caveat is if you have a strop that exhibits draw and a particular razor has none on it you can use that as an indicator the razor is not shave ready. I've found if the razor has draw it may be shave ready but if it doesn't it's not.

That's a handy indicator though imprecise it is.