Thread: Stiff strop, how to soften it up?

If one of you decides to use neats foot, remember, it's easy to get it on and in the leather. It's another story trying to get it out. Just touch the tip of your finger in the "cap" after shaking it up, don't swipe. Rub that small amount onto your palm and fingers of the same hand and work it into the leather and then let hang for 24 hours. Keep just doing palm rubbing for the remainder of the week and see if it's improved. If not, repeat the neats foot and another week of working it. It's better than getting an over oiled mess and trying to fix that. Good Luck!!

Regards,

Howard

Okay so here's what I did, I got some baby oil(mineral oil with fragrance) and put a couple of drops on my palm and then rubbed it into the leather really well, front and back and let it soak it up. The I took the leather strop and layed it flat on my table. Using a round glass jar with about three drops of the baby oil rubbed over it, I rolled it up and down the strop for about 10 mins or so until it was all soaked up. Then a hung it up, rubbed it down with a cloth to soak up any excess and palm rubbed it for about 5 mins until it was nice and warm on my hand. Let it sit overnight and gave it a go stripping before my shave today. Worked a treat, it's perfectly flat, and much more soft and pliable now, and it doesn't smell of baby oil at all, just smells of leather. Pretty glad with the results.

It did darken it a littl, but being a black strop as it is, that doesn't matter. Made the draw of the strop slightly heavier too, but quite nice.

Daniel, how about gently flexing the strop along it's latitudinal axis?

Originally Posted by Ignatius

Daniel, how about gently flexing the strop along it's latitudinal axis?

I have very gently, but not much as I'm afraid I'd crease the leather. When SRD posted it they had folded the strop and left a crease down the middle of it that was rough when stropping, so I lightly sanded the bumps back with a fine sand paper and rolled a glass jar over it so smooth it out. Dont want to do that again.

You definitely do not want to crease the leather. You may need to work it a bit more over time, though. Now if that crease down the middle is SRD's fault and not the delivery service's, I would say you should be talking to them about a replacement. A strop with a crease down the middle is not acceptable and you shouldn't have to work to fix it. That said, assuming that the crease can go away, why worry about the strop being a little stiff? Leather does vary in it's firmness but that does not necessarily mean it's a bad strop. If you can resolve the crease issue, I wouldn't worry about the stiffness as long as the strop is doing it's job.

All the best

I want to say, "that's what she said" to a ton of these replies

Originally Posted by OpTiCz

I want to say, "that's what she said" to a ton of these replies

Hahahhaha.


I'm happy with the strop now, pretty much how I wanted it. The crease was anoying, I don't know if it was done when it was packed or during transit but when I opened the package the strop was longer then the box and bent around tightly to make it fit, leaving a crease in the leather. I can't be bothered going to SRD for a replacement though.