Thread: Homemade Pasted Paddle Strop Question

I finally got around to making my (very simple) pasted paddle strop. I used 2inch wide basswood and leather. I cemented the leather onto the wood and then sanded out the nicks and wrinkles. The leather was once a whipped dog poor man's strop that developed severe wrinkles. I cut off the part that was too wrinkled to use and ended up with about 8 inches of leather. After sanding, it was very smooth although it looked kind of bad. My CrOx came in the mail today so all was good.

But I ran into a problem. I know from tutorials that you shouldn't apply the CrOx to resemble pool table felt. So I did what I saw in the wiki article: dabbed my finger and made 3 large X's with the paste. Then I rubbed it in as evenly as I could. I was expecting a greenish tint to the brown leather.

I ended up with pool table felt. Apparently, I put too much even though I dabbed my finger into the little tub only once.

So my question is: will it still work the way it's supposed to? Or do I need to try again?

Rub it down with a old wash cloth and it should be fine, what you want to avoid it a build up, that is why we always say use very little of it...

I'm curious what caused the wrinkles in the first place. I've used Whipped Dog leather for a number of projects and they have all worked well and stayed in good shape. Were you treating the leather with anything?

Brian

gssixgun: should the wash cloth be damp? Dry?

diyguy: I have no idea where the wrinkles came from. Larry said it was a bad piece of leather that slipped by. Those things happen and it's not a big deal. It took me a lot of sanding though to get rid of the more minor wrinkles. The major ones turned out to be more like cracks in the leather. The new one he sent me has been absolutely fantastic.

So I wiped the strop down with a damp cloth, then rubbed it with a dry one. There's a lot of green on the cloth, which I assume means I removed a lot of CrOx. The strop itself is pretty green still, but I imagine it's better.

So now I have another question. I just used the pasted paddle strop for 10-15 laps after I had done 5 laps on my barber's hone. On the new strop, there was almost no draw...to the point that I wasn't even sure I was doing it right. It felt like I was doing absolutely nothing to the edge...I had been expecting some draw because of the fact that it's a sharpening paste. Is that normal?

It is with my crox pasted paddle strop. There's no draw.

sounds normal then. I guess it was a success then!

How does that razor feel while shaving?

I'll find out tomorrow.

Wow. Best shave ever. Hone+pasted strop+linen+strop combo proved to be absofreakinlutely amazing. The blade just sliced through everything and the only irritation I got was on a surprise outcrop of acne on my neck. Seriously, where did that come from. But no weepers, no red spots, no burn, almost no stubble...nothing.

Which now leads me to another question...

Can you use a pasted strop too much? After my shave, I stropped a few times on the linen to clean it off and I noticed some dark spots near the edge (maybe even on the edge...not sure). I opted for another 5 laps on the pasted strop, 150 on linen, 200 on leather. The dark spots are completely gone and the edge looks better than it ever did before. I thought it was worth it to take a chance on over-honing to clean and shine that edge.

Suppose I were to give the razor 2 or 3 passes on the pasted strop after every shave? Is that a problem? At the moment I don't plan to do that, so don't flame me...yet. I imagine I'd do it every 3 shaves or so...but I'm just curious to know what might happen.