Finishing Strop?

[GKR1]

I thought a strop was a strop and only the draw made the delta.

However, while looking a for new strop I keep reading "Finishing Strop" or "After Hone Strop" and " Stropping Progression" which one starts on, Fiber, then Latigo and finally transsion to Horse.

Why would the strop leather type matter? Now I understand if you have a nice strop that you only use before the shave and the not so nice leather one after shave or after honing to not get swarf or soap grime on your nice one.

Is there something I am missing as how the leather effects the edge.

 

[SliceOfLife]

The only time I use two leathers is with my Kanayama which has a suede in place of a canvas.

In general... I think some people buy Latigo and just don't like them, but don't want to get rid of them, so maybe they come up with a pointless three strop solution instead of just going linen to Shell? If memory serves one company DID market a 3 piece solution with Canvas, Latigo and shell... struck me a silly. I think it was Star back when they were still in business? I don't know. It's been awhile since I had a Latigo, but I seem to remember they worked fine for me, I just didn't care for the draw they had. I see no point in using Latigo then Horsehide... again unless maybe the Latigo is set up to have enough draw it can replace the canvas (the way the #3 Kana uses Suede)

Hell, some guys don't even use canvas... just a single leather strop.


I'm not going to say that every type of leather finishes a razor exactly the same... but I don't think there's enough variance that you'd EVER need a progression of leathers... just use whichever one you like the shave off of and get rid of the other, imho.

 

[stone and strop]

Kanayama produces 3 component strops. Canvas, Suede and leather.
ANY leather strop can be used as a "finishing" strop. Its mostly a tactile difference but some (for me) definitely are more effective.
When a strop has a - use this side first, it will normally be treated or textured in some way as to make it less fine then the last leather.
Personally, I do not use the linen. ALL of the strops I use are Shell Leather, most are vintage with the exception of the Kanayamas.

 

[steveclarkus]

My strop only has two pieces of leather. The first is horse hide and and the finish piece is horse shell marked “Finish”. I have a separate linen strop I’ve been experimenting with - no idea whether it makes a difference. I strop on .1u Diamond pasted balsa after each shave then leather.

 

[Alum of Potash]

I have a vintage piece with with two leather components, both marked "genuine horsehide." One is black-colored with a rougher surface and is marked "sharpen" at the bottom. The other is maroon-colored with a smoother surface and marked "finish" at the bottom. So it seems that the black-colored one is to fill the role played by fire hose. I presume that this is for bringing back edge irregularities beyond the means of the maroon-colored piece and to be used on rare occasion rather than every day.

I remember the Star Latigo and English bridle strops that SoL mentions. When they were in business, I recall Star claiming that the latigo strop had a grit rating of 95,000x whereas the English bridle had a grit rating of 120,000x. Where they came up with these figures, I don't know. They recommended the latigo for knives and the English bridle for razors. Following this and the vintage piece mentioned above, I have played around with paring a piece of horsehide with latigo. Mostly, I just use the horsehide side. Maybe I might do 10-12 passes on the latigo side at the start, if only because it's there, but I don't like how it feels in stropping. Sort of like rubber.

 

[Joshua223]

You can keep it as simple as you want. You don't have to have multiple strops. Some guys will add extra steps to try and get the most out of their blade while others prefer a simpler approach.

Hell, some guys don't even use canvas... just a single leather strop..

Before I had a fabric component I just cleaned the blade and stropped on a DIY bridle strop. No pastes, sprays, crayons, fabrics, or progressions. I just made sure the blade was clean and dry so I didn't rub hair, soap, or particles from a hone into the leather.
Now my progression consists of fabric THEN leather.

 

[Tony Miller]

I have a vintage piece with with two leather components, both marked "genuine horsehide." One is black-colored with a rougher surface and is marked "sharpen" at the bottom. The other is maroon-colored with a smoother surface and marked "finish" at the bottom. So it seems that the black-colored one is to fill the role played by fire hose. I presume that this is for bringing back edge irregularities beyond the means of the maroon-colored piece and to be used on rare occasion rather than every day.

I remember the Star Latigo and English bridle strops that SoL mentions. When they were in business, I recall Star claiming that the latigo strop had a grit rating of 95,000x whereas the English bridle had a grit rating of 120,000x. Where they came up with these figures, I don't know. They recommended the latigo for knives and the English bridle for razors. Following this and the vintage piece mentioned above, I have played around with paring a piece of horsehide with latigo. Mostly, I just use the horsehide side. Maybe I might do 10-12 passes on the latigo side at the start, if only because it's there, but I don't like how it feels in stropping. Sort of like rubber.

I always suspected some on those "sharpen" / "finish" strops had one component dressed with an abrasive and the other left plain.

I did some pairings in the past with an Illinois 127/827 thereby having a heavy draw and a light and did some latigo/horsehide combos as well. Maybe the rougher side took the place of a cloth component but I just liked having two draw options in one place depending on the razor I was using.

Leather can vary so much from one batch to another it is always hard to say just what would make a good finish strop based on leather generalizations. I would simply consider a faster strop more of a finisher for me than a heavier draw strop but have seen horsehide with a fairly strong draw and latigo that was kind of slick.

Not huge consistency from one tannery to another as each has their own formula for each type of leather based on what they feel their market desires. One companies latigo can be quite different than another's and so on.