Thread: Canvas Backing On Strop

The one thing you will notice on the vintage linens....they are dirty! That dirt/soap came from the razor. Would you like that on your leather strop? IMHO, that is the primary purpose of the linen, to clean the razor of any leftover shaving soap etc.

Hope this helps,

I agree - my razors always go via the 'seatbelt' material before hitting the leather and come out nice and clean/shiny. I haven't really experimented with just using the leather at all... I'm presuming that if the canvas stuff is there it helps...

i did both, witout linnen and whit linnen. i must say it looks like that whit linnen the egde is a bit better than whitout.
But thats what i think,someone else can have here a different opinion on, I think.
So do what you seems is the best thing to do.

Spadeboy

Glenn & RandyDance hit it on the head. Look at your razor under magnification before you strop. You will find Soap, Skin, Blood and Oxidation/Rust. If you go straight to your expensive prime leather strop, all that gunk gets imbedded into the pores of the leather. You may never be able to remove it from the pores.

You will see on this site and others, photos under high magnification of polished bevels with random deep stria on them. I believe this stria comes from this gunk on our strops. Test it yourself by wiping your strop with a damp white paper towel and see what comes off. That is just air-borne dust and from your razor.

Nylon/Poly strops work great and aggressively polish the bevel more than linen, or canvas with the exception of modern sailcloth. Fine weave Nylon similar to seatbelt works best, but most any Poly/Nylon works well as the bevel rides on the tops of the weave. Better than linen? Depends on the Poly/Nylon, linen and the stropper.

The added benefit is refining the edge, rub your finger on a seatbelt and see how much heat it can generate in a short amount of time. A word of warning if you use Seat Belts, use only NEW seat belt, old ones have other peoples gunk in them, that you will not be able to remove from the weave completely. One of the best ways I have found to keep your razor and bevel clean is with a Micro Fiber cloth. Rinse in hot water and wipe dry with a clean micro fiber cloth, it will remove almost all gunk from your edge.

All stropping is more about technique than the material stropped on. Poly/Nylon is great to learn on as it is difficult to cut, new supple quality leather slices quick and easily.

I am just learning but so far this is what I have noticed. If my blade is past due for a strop then a few laps on the linen seems to cut down on the laps on the leather. I have yet to use any hone higher than a Norton 8,000 and my opinion is that of a beginner. I haven't used either enough to get anything dirty but will now just keep the linen part of the routine. Why skip a step and learn the hard way ?