Thread: Old barbershop strops

For me the tallow soap and bottle works wonders (as many have said) Have always been put of by sanding as grit contamination is a concern of mine,One of the best things I have found for cleaning vintage leather are Mr. clean magic erasers (melimine foam).
They are abrasive on a sub-micron level and leave no residue.They really clean old leather well.They also do a fantastic jop of polishing Ivory.

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

For me the tallow soap and bottle works wonders (as many have said) Have always been put of by sanding as grit contamination is a concern of mine,One of the best things I have found for cleaning vintage leather are Mr. clean magic erasers (melimine foam).
They are abrasive on a sub-micron level and leave no residue.They really clean old leather well.They also do a fantastic jop of polishing Ivory.

I have shied away from sanding strops as well. Unless I'm mistaken, once you go through the smooth top grain leather there is no getting it back ? No finishing method will reproduce that top grain. It is either there or it is not and becomes, at some level, the rough leather below the top grain, no matter how smooth you can finish it.

Thanks a lot everyone. I cleaned them up and used a little mink oil. They look and feel nice after a good warm up using my palm.

Very nice strop to have found laying around. Looks like an earlier Kanayama Llama series? Perhaps made for and distributed by a company here? My eyes are too old to see the pic's that clearly.

I've had good luck with saddle soap alternating with glycerin on a Russia Shell strop.

When I've had to sand out any nicks, I've just used my DMT plates. That sidesteps the threat of grit contamination.

+1 to DMT on the strops I tried that too came out okay. I just couldn't be bothered finding the sandpaper though wasn't for any other reason Lol.

I'm about to try and restore a couple of vintage strops I got with a coticule and a swaty and some other random little barber hones. The coticule was realllly nice so I'm hoping the strops come out nice also after some TLC