Thread: Canvas Backing On Strop

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.