Has anyone had experience with using mineral oil on strops. I know you can use it on cutting boards and wooden bowls.
Mineral oil on strops
- Thread starter Uncle Shakey
- Start date
I mixed mineral oil and chromium oxide together and put on a strop. This was about a month ago. I haven't had any problems with it, yet.
Personally, I would never, ever put mineral oil on any leather.
Petroleum products have a tendancy to rot leather. Leather should only be treated and/or handled with animal- or plant based compounds specifically forumulated for leather care (for example, Neatsfoot Oil).
An additional weird problem that one can encounter with treating a paddle type leather strop with an oil compound (any oil) is that with enough (over) application, the oil can leech through the leather to the other side and start to affect the glue bond which holds the leather to the paddle. So go easy with the stuff, no matter what you decide to use.
Petroleum products have a tendancy to rot leather. Leather should only be treated and/or handled with animal- or plant based compounds specifically forumulated for leather care (for example, Neatsfoot Oil).
An additional weird problem that one can encounter with treating a paddle type leather strop with an oil compound (any oil) is that with enough (over) application, the oil can leech through the leather to the other side and start to affect the glue bond which holds the leather to the paddle. So go easy with the stuff, no matter what you decide to use.
- Thread starter
- #4
I read the bottle and mineral oil is not a petoleum product. One of the things it is used for is skin softening.
I did the same thing with my chromium oxide strop, though the strop was an improvised piece of wood.
I'm not sure about using it on leather though. I would think at the very least it might decrease the draw (although less of a problem if it's being used with paste).
To the OP, why do you need to oil your strop? From what I hear if it's just general maintenance rubbing your hands on it is preferred.
To be clear, I only used the mineral oil as a carrier to get the chromium oxide on my strop and it was a Tony Miller practice strop. I would not use mineral oil on my regular strop. I follow Tony's directions and rub my stop down with my hands, of course my wife thinks I'm completely crazy. Her best joke yet was "It puts the lotion on its skin". I was 
I've used Ballistol (has high grade mineral oil in it) to apply pastes and to add draw to a latigo strop. They still look good. The hanging latigo strop is used daily.
Normally I would just use my hand for normal strop care.
Normally I would just use my hand for normal strop care.
As with leather boots Ballistol and other oils close the surface of the leather and are therefore not recommended.
I don't know if it's the same with razor strops.
I don't know if it's the same with razor strops.
I'll make a few laps on my strop with my bare hands. This was a suggestion I got from Tony Miller a couple years ago.
And if you read the side of a box of raisins, it doesn't say, "Contains grape products."
Mineral oil is precisely a petroleum product. To be more specific, when petroleum is refined to produce gasoline, one of the by-products is mineral oil.
The plastic bottle that contains the mineral oil, by the way, is also a petroleum product -- although this fact, too, is not mentioned on the label.
Now all that said, mineral oil has been traditionally used as a leather conditioner. So has naphtha (main ingredient in shoe polish), another petroleum product.
