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Loose grit in strop

I have this ReadyShell shell strop that I was restoring. When I run a razor over it I can see small scratches on the finish of the bevel, which is likely from loose grit particles in the strop when I sanded it a long time ago. From the amount of scratches I can see there's probably only a couple of particles imbedded in the leather. Does anyone know how do I get them out?

I cleaned it with saddle soap, and would like to to get those particles out before I apply the carnauba wax. Thanks
 
Do NOT put carnauba wax on your strop! No need for wax on a strop.
If you have an imbedded grit in your stop use a beater razor and strop slowly. You will hear the click. Use a loupe to find it when you have an area to start with. Barring that you could use shears or scissors to scrape the strop.
A local barber once told me to use shears every once in a while to clean it.
 
Scissors in a scraping motion? Never thought of that. I thought carnauba was good for a shell strop, per tradition.
 
Scissors in a scraping motion? Never thought of that. I thought carnauba was good for a shell strop, per tradition.

What tradition?
I would never put wax on a strop for any reason. If it is dry try a few drops of neatsfoot oil rubbed into the hand then rubbed into the strop.
Less is more.
 
I have a 2"-wide Walkin' Horse Horween cordovan strop that was starting to wear and get patchy in places. Jarrod at TSS, who sold me the strop, recommended carnauba wax to restore it to its pristine state and sent me a small sample gratis to use. It worked quite well. Maybe that's where the "tradition" came from. Elsewhere, I have applied leather conditioning balm, which contained wax in the solution, to a horsehide strop. That did not go so well. So it would seem that it depends on the kind of leather and wax being used.

Doesn't saddle soap already have wax as one of its constituent ingredients?
 
Alan, this is why I ask about tradition. Maybe he has reference from somewhere.
I have never heard of applying wax. Normally nothing is recommended for Cordovan, not even oil especially on Kanayamas.
I'm sure there are some products that contain wax for leather but carnauba wax directly?
I would stick with oils myself.
Some leathers are processed with oil/wax mixtures but my thinking is it would add significant draw to an existing leather.
Maybe buffing the crap out of it afterwards?
Now that I think of it I seen a video some time ago about restoring a strop where the guy applied a wax type compound then put it to a large shoe buffing machine and polished it out. It looked good but don't think it would be practical in use.
 
Yeah wax wouldn't go on any other leather besides shell, but people have been doing that for a long time I think. I don't have any references to link besides what people say on forums, but I always see antique shell strops with a buildup of wax. Unfortunately I don't know what's in my saddle soap :/ no ingredients listed. It's Moneysworth & Best.

I tried obliquely scraping one of my dull knives on it, which didn't scratch it per say, but I think that might have done the trick (I don't recommend this lightly). It sure smoothed out the surface even more, I just need to get a polished piece of metal to do the ultimate test.

Thanks! I'll keep this thread updated.
 
Alan, this is why I ask about tradition. Maybe he has reference from somewhere.
I have never heard of applying wax. Normally nothing is recommended for Cordovan, not even oil especially on Kanayamas.
I'm sure there are some products that contain wax for leather but carnauba wax directly?
I would stick with oils myself.
Some leathers are processed with oil/wax mixtures but my thinking is it would add significant draw to an existing leather.
Maybe buffing the crap out of it afterwards?
Now that I think of it I seen a video some time ago about restoring a strop where the guy applied a wax type compound then put it to a large shoe buffing machine and polished it out. It looked good but don't think it would be practical in use.

The Walkin' Horse Horween cordovan strop is a bit different from the shell strops of old. It's buffed to a high finish, as I think you have guessed, made from pieces intended for the shoe industry. So perhaps it has wax as you mention. But the draw is very light, about as light as it can be (and the same holds true for the horsehide strop given the balm treatment which lightened the draw). Imagine the strop equivalent of a polished black hard Arkansas stone, where even a stray piece of lint or dust on the surface can be seriously felt. That is what the WH Horween cordovan strop is like.
 
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I used a flexi drywall scraper to clear suspected grit out of mine. Feel along it using the pads of your palms and the first section of your fingers from your palms, rather than your fingertips, as the tips have, from use wear and injury, become too desensitized to feel that small of an item accurately. Then wiped and buffed it with a microfiber towel, turning it often. Lastly, I would never use sanding paper on a strop. To repair a nick or cut only, I used a diamond fingernail board. Do you hone? It might also be cross contamination from honing slurry not cleaned off adequately before stropping.

For conditioning my strop, I clean and treat with the same product I treat my cars’ seats with. Tanner's Preserve. Coconut oil is fine too. It is what is the main constituent in some strop products from Solingen.
 

Tony Miller

Speaking of horse butts…
The Walkin' Horse Horween cordovan strop is a bit different from the shell strops of old. It's buffed to a high finish, as I think you have guessed, made from pieces intended for the shoe industry. So perhaps it has wax as you mention. But the draw is very light, about as light as it can be (and the same holds true for the horsehide strop given the balm treatment which lightened the draw). Imagine the strop equivalent of a polished black hard Arkansas stone, where even a stray piece of lint or dust on the surface can be seriously felt. That is what the WH Horween cordovan strop is like.

Yes, Horween's cordovan is very slick and had a lot of hand treatment to get it that way. Almost no draw and the surface does seem to be waxed. Horween also does veg tanned horse butt with a waxed, glazed surface.

I am working with a steerhide with similar characteristics now and what looks like a waxed, buffed surface. All of these are great for those who want nearly zero draw which to me feels good on really light weight razors.

As for the grit removal, buffing with a really coarse hard terrycloth towel or washcloth and a lot of pressure can help remove grit. Cheap dollar store towels have that hard feel. Good for cleaning the excess residue from abrasive pasted strops too. Does not get it all off but does remove a lot of buildup so one can paste again.
 
I used a flexi drywall scraper to clear suspected grit out of mine. Feel along it using the pads of your palms and the first section of your fingers from your palms, rather than your fingertips, as the tips have, from use wear and injury, become too desensitized to feel that small of an item accurately. Then wiped and buffed it with a microfiber towel, turning it often. Lastly, I would never use sanding paper on a strop. To repair a nick or cut only, I used a diamond fingernail board. Do you hone? It might also be cross contamination from honing slurry not cleaned off adequately before stropping.

For conditioning my strop, I clean and treat with the same product I treat my cars’ seats with. Tanner's Preserve. Coconut oil is fine too. It is what is the main constituent in some strop products from Solingen.

Glad to know there's at least a couple people using the scraping method. Wouldn't a fingernail board also pose the risk of grit contamination? I do hone, but these scratches seem too bright to be anything but really low grit. I mainly use coticules.

Yes, Horween's cordovan is very slick and had a lot of hand treatment to get it that way. Almost no draw and the surface does seem to be waxed. Horween also does veg tanned horse butt with a waxed, glazed surface.

I am working with a steerhide with similar characteristics now and what looks like a waxed, buffed surface. All of these are great for those who want nearly zero draw which to me feels good on really light weight razors.

As for the grit removal, buffing with a really coarse hard terrycloth towel or washcloth and a lot of pressure can help remove grit. Cheap dollar store towels have that hard feel. Good for cleaning the excess residue from abrasive pasted strops too. Does not get it all off but does remove a lot of buildup so one can paste again.

Thanks to the both of you for mentioning the towel buffing method, I'll certainly try to add that.
 
The Walkin' Horse Horween cordovan strop is a bit different from the shell strops of old. It's buffed to a high finish, as I think you have guessed, made from pieces intended for the shoe industry. So perhaps it has wax as you mention. But the draw is very light, about as light as it can be (and the same holds true for the horsehide strop given the balm treatment which lightened the draw). Imagine the strop equivalent of a polished black hard Arkansas stone, where even a stray piece of lint or dust on the surface can be seriously felt. That is what the WH Horween cordovan strop is like.

Yes the Kanayamas feel as though they are buffed, maybe with a wax of sorts but I think the tanning process introduces that.
As far as other Shell strops I think it would be counterintuitive and maybe why I feel they are more effective for stropping.
The old Red Imps get a black build up on them suggesting abrasion - something the Kanayams have never had.
My 70k Kanayama is maybe the least effective strop I have but it is sublime to strop on. I use it more rarely than any other and usually for very thin grinds or a few finish strokes on some razors. It does remind me of very high end cordovan shoes. The finest smoothest leather I have ever felt

I used a flexi drywall scraper to clear suspected grit out of mine.

This could work or other hard plastic with a decent edge.
 
Glad to know there's at least a couple people using the scraping method. Wouldn't a fingernail board also pose the risk of grit contamination? I do hone, but these scratches seem too bright to be anything but really low grit. I mainly use coticules.



Thanks to the both of you for mentioning the towel buffing method, I'll certainly try to add that.
I too, thought there might be the risk but I think it is less than a sanding paper....better embedded and glued down perhaps...merely speculation. And these were the black foam boards not a paper emery board. After repairing the few cuts and nicks, it was treated the same, well scraped at the site of the repair, then wiped off, buffed and treated/conditioned.
 
Yes, Horween's cordovan is very slick and had a lot of hand treatment to get it that way. Almost no draw and the surface does seem to be waxed. Horween also does veg tanned horse butt with a waxed, glazed surface.

I am working with a steerhide with similar characteristics now and what looks like a waxed, buffed surface. All of these are great for those who want nearly zero draw which to me feels good on really light weight razors.

As for the grit removal, buffing with a really coarse hard terrycloth towel or washcloth and a lot of pressure can help remove grit. Cheap dollar store towels have that hard feel. Good for cleaning the excess residue from abrasive pasted strops too. Does not get it all off but does remove a lot of buildup so one can paste again.

Thanks for your comments Tony, you've got me drooling over that steerhide description already!
 
I just stropped and shaved and I didn't see any random scratches so I guess the scraping worked. I used basically a lobster splitter type knife that was not really sharp, but with a very obtuse bevel angle, and then scraped it in a stropping motion with an obtuse angle of around 45 or more degrees. It put marks in the shell but they are more or less wiping away with some hand rubbing.
 
Another update. More stropping revealed that there were still mysterious scratches on my edges. This time I pulled out all the stops and semi-polished the back of my DMT. I rubbed that thing on the strop in small sections at time, and in specific directions to hone in on where these little buggers are. I found a couple on the stropping surface, and scraped that area until they stopped showing up on the polished metal.

What was really interesting, and likely the cause of the ongoing problem, was that loads of scratches were showing up when I rubbed the bottom of the strop where I hold it with my hand. You see when I strop, I rub it with my one hand, then switch and rub it with my other hand. My off hand must have been picking up grit, and then rubbing it all over the strop. Mystery solved? We'll see.
 
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