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Hi,
I m new to straight razors. Last week i accidently wipe my dovo paddle strop's russian leather side with wet towel. After that it turns darken on this side and gets harden, not smooth as before. But not very bad. Can i do anything to restore this?
Regards
Water will stain leather and it's usually permanent. Depending on the finish the degree of stain will vary. usually the leather itself doesn't harden so I'm not sure what happened there.
I've saturated leather to get bends and folds out and it never turned hard.
About the only thing you can do is use some quality leather cleaner followed by conditioner like Bick or Fromm or Lexol or Neatsfoot oil and see if it softens up again.
I'm sure one of our strop experts will come along with some better advice.
I agree, the stain is usually permanent. If you get leather really wet, its often best to wet the whole piece equally and then absord as much of the mosture as you can, then let it dry slowly - at least that way you stand some chance of it drying to an even colour.
In my experience, wet leather dries stiff - even chamois leathers dry stiff. Usually its not much of a problem, because you can work the leather, flexing it back and forth, and the stiffness disappears. But you are snookered - you can't do that because it is on a paddle.
Water usually destroys the nap too - brushing with a fine brass brush usually does the trick and softens it a bit, but you have to be careful not to leave any metal behind. If the leather did not have a nap to begin with, then sanding it would be better.
If the leather doesn't perform well anymore, you may have to resort to sanding it with fine wet and dry paper (not sandpaper) to raise a bit of a soft nap.
You could also wet it again and lather it with a tallow soap (eg Mitchells Wool Fat) or saddle soap. If you lather it, get a good lather worked well into it and leave overnight, brushing off the dried lather in the morning. If you saddle soap it, work the soap well in and towel it off, using dry rags to remove as much water as possible. Buff it before it dries fully. You will alter the nature of the leather so its a bit of a drastic cure.
If all else fails, you can always replace the leather.
Regards,
Neil