Thread: Which better strop treatment: Neatsfoot or Mink Oil?

Originally Posted by 10Pups

Without touching a piece of leather I give this advice with caution. Alcohol dries out the surface. Let's say I was going to dye a piece that had already been tanned. I would use denatured alcohol and rub the dickens out of it. May have to do it several times. You NEVER want to soak leather in anything. Neetsfoot oil should be used in drops only and I never advise that for rookies to leather. Liquid glycerin is all I ever use on leather for conditioning and cleaning. I have a saddle that is over 150 years old. still ride in it. It gets horse sweat,dirt,beer,water, mud, you name it. I wipe it off with the liquid and put it away. Leather is dead skin. After tanned you should only need to clean it and use it.

Where do you get this glycerin. I am aware of it at pharmacies, it that the kind you use and what exactly does it do. I have a new one coming tomorrow and out of all of the 30 plus years I have used commercial conditioners from shaving places.

Originally Posted by xiaotuzi

I have one of my strops that a few years ago I put way too much neatsfoot oil on, big mistake. Since then I stopped using it because it's oily and slippery, lost it's "draw". I tried wiping it down with dry towel every day, a wet towel, my hands, paper towel, newspaper, still so oily. Is there any way to make it usable again?

Wrap it in paper towels and put a little pressure on it with some books or something. I think I remember Neil Miller recommending this in a thread.

Tack/feed stores carry the kind I use. I think Tandy has some. You want the kind used on glycerin. I don't know about regular soap.

Paper towels , fine saw dust, anything that will soak up oil. Not the stuff they use on floors though. That has some other fun stuff in it.
With all things leather think natural.

I've over oiled a strop before and the way I fixed was to put it between two newspapers (maybe 20 pages each) and then I put a bag of cement on top of it for weight. A week later I had two oily newspapers and an almost oil free strop.

Another option is to strop and wipe the oil off the blade. Strop and wipe, strop and wipe, strop and wipe, repeat a thousand times.

Originally Posted by xiaotuzi

I have one of my strops that a few years ago I put way too much neatsfoot oil on, big mistake. Since then I stopped using it because it's oily and slippery, lost it's "draw". I tried wiping it down with dry towel every day, a wet towel, my hands, paper towel, newspaper, still so oily. Is there any way to make it usable again?

For what it's worth...4yrs on.. I fairly recently over oiled a strop with neatsfoot but continued to use it despite the heavy draw. Eventually it started to dry out and fray on the surface... I thought I'd ruined it. A few days ago I gave it a mild saddle soap and water treatment. Let it dry then hit it again. After the 2nd dry I applied some Mink oil with a clean cloth. I didn't use much, about a shoe shine amount. Then rubbed it in further with my thumbs. Let that dry for a few hours and buffed it with a brush. It came up beautifully. Silky smooth draw, I couldn't be more pleased with the result.
The MO I used was a famous American boot brand MO and does contain silicone and lanolin. Hopefully I won't have to do that very often, if at all? Will try and stick to hand rubbing from now on. It was a useful salvage method though.

I've used rubbing alcohol on a rag, to remove excess oil on a over oiled strop. No problems arose from doing it.