Thread: Strop and CrO questions

I have been doing a lot of reading and sometimes that is bad for me because I over think everything. I bought this strop 3" "Bid Daddy" Leather Strop

and have been using it for a few months (the length of my straight razor shaving career). Anyway here are some of my questions for now.

1. I think I would like to use CrO can/should I put it on one side of the wool strop or do I use that on something different?

2. The natural oil in my skin have a tendency to eat leather and plastics should I use Neat Oil on the stop instead of relying on just what is on my hands? If so how do you use that?

3. Is there a time when I would ever use the rough side of the leather strop and if so when?

I need to have the blade professionally honed and start over but I did pretty well I think at just using the leather stop to keep the edge for a while. Wish I would have come here first and learned a little bit more before jumping in.

Thanks for the help

Mods this may be better suited for the stropping forum if so please move.

I've never heard of natural oil eating anything however you probably have excess acid in your skin and that in your sweat is what is eating things. You can use neatsfoot but very sparingly.

you make a good point probably not in the oils but I did not want to take a chance of ruining the strop.

I would not paste my daily strop. Make a 3 x 12 inch pasted bench strop and paste it with CrOx or 0.5 diamond paste. Strop on the smooth side of the hanging strop. Do a few strokes on the pasted strop when the daily is no longer effective then wipe clean and restrop on the daily. When the pasted strop no longer works, rehone.

If you want use something like neat oil shouldn't be an issue you can put a very small amount on you clean palm and rub it into the strop every 2 weeks or when you notice that your draw is different.

For the crox I normally would recommend not putting any paste on a daily strop just for the fact that cross contamination is a very real possibility and then you could end up with more problems and not know what the issue is. I would recommend buying a or making a paddle or bench strop for the crox I know star shaving sells a pretty nice looking felt bench strop with crox.

With that said both sides of the felt strop on the big daddy are usable so you could unscrew the felt from the leather spray the rear side of the felt and put the strop back together. With this setup you should be able to use your strop like normal but when you want to use the crox unscrew the felt flip it rescrew use it, unscrew flip it rescrew, clean blade and strop like normal.

As for the rough side of your leather you really will not ever need to use it.

Originally Posted by Castel33

. . .

For the crox I normally would recommend not putting any paste on a daily strop just for the fact that cross contamination is a very real possibility and then you could end up with more problems and not know what the issue is. I would recommend buying a or making a paddle or bench strop for the crox I know star shaving sells a pretty nice looking felt bench strop with crox.

With that said both sides of the felt strop on the big daddy are usable so you could unscrew the felt from the leather spray the rear side of the felt and put the strop back together. With this setup you should be able to use your strop like normal but when you want to use the crox unscrew the felt flip it rescrew use it, unscrew flip it rescrew, clean blade and strop like normal.

. . .

I tried that with an Illinois strop -- put some green CrOxide on one side of a linen strop, left the other side plain. And reversed the linen when I (occasionally) wanted to use the CrOxide side.

After several months, the "plain" side started looking just a bit greenish ! I think the CrOxide was working its way through the cloth.

So I'd suggest making a CrOxide bench strop out of balsa, or putting the CrOxide on a length of seatbelt webbing.

. . Charles

That is what I was afraid of. I figured that I could just use one side pasted and the other plain but did not if would cross contaminate or bleed through. I ordered a paddle stop and joined the STROPTOBER thread so we will see what happens.

Originally Posted by cpcohen1945

I tried that with an Illinois strop -- put some green CrOxide on one side of a linen strop, left the other side plain. And reversed the linen when I (occasionally) wanted to use the CrOxide side.

After several months, the "plain" side started looking just a bit greenish ! I think the CrOxide was working its way through the cloth.

So I'd suggest making a CrOxide bench strop out of balsa, or putting the CrOxide on a length of seatbelt webbing.

. . Charles

The Illinois 827 is fairly inexpensive, just buy another and dedicate it to pastes if you want to. I know I did!