Scuffs and wear on a vintage strop

[Seelector]

I’ve got this vintage shell strop that came to me already restored. It’s developed these scuff marks along the right edge over the past few months of use, I can feel the spine dragging over those spots.

Is there a way to repair these? The rest of the strop is in pretty good shape. The scuffs are only near the top and bottom, nothing in the middle where you can it was used a lot.

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

Does your razor have jimps on the top of the tang or sharp corner? Likely you are using too much pressure on the flip.

Make a lap, stop, flip (without lifting the spine from the strop), begin the return stroke and land the bevel/edge gently on the strop, after the razor is in forward motion. The spine never leaves the strop.

Watch your pressure and speed, slow down. As with honing the faster you go, the more pressure you are using.

You can sand the corner with some 400-600 Wet & Dry and add a bit of oil, olive oil works. Fold a paper towel into a 2” pad, add a teaspoon of oil to the pad and wipe down the whole strop. The strop may not have uniform color absorption, but it will soak in and even out in a few hours or days.

Wipe off any excess that does not absorb in 5 minutes. If it drinks it up instantly, wait a few hours and re-oil, may take 2-3 applications.

Do not over oil, you can cause the leather to rot, it is best to wait at least a day between applications.

I oil my daily drivers a couple times a year.

 

[Seelector]

Does your razor have jimps on the top of the tang or sharp corner? Likely you are using too much pressure on the flip.

Make a lap, stop, flip (without lifting the spine from the strop), begin the return stroke and land the bevel/edge gently on the strop, after the razor is in forward motion. The spine never leaves the strop.

Watch your pressure and speed, slow down. As with honing the faster you go, the more pressure you are using.

You can sand the corner with some 400-600 Wet & Dry and add a bit of oil, olive oil works. Fold a paper towel into a 2” pad, add a teaspoon of oil to the pad and wipe down the whole strop. The strop may not have uniform color absorption, but it will soak in and even out in a few hours or days.

Wipe off any excess that does not absorb in 5 minutes. If it drinks it up instantly, wait a few hours and re-oil, may take 2-3 applications.

Do not over oil, you can cause the leather to rot, it is best to wait at least a day between applications.

I oil my daily drivers a couple times a year.

I’ll watch my pressure. I can feel the scraping with all my razors, jimps or not.

I’ve got a little bottle of neatsfoot oil that the seller included with the strop, would that work too?

 

[Ravenonrock]

I have a similar look to one of my well used strops, mostly on the bottom right. I must remind myself to really use a light touch and slow down paying more attention to the transitions. I do treat my whole strop with neatsfoot oil a few times a year to condition the leather. More so I try and work on my technique.

 

[Seelector]

A quick sand and one application of neatsfoot later, and it’s looking 10x better. This picture is after letting the oil soak in overnight.

 

[jj_sharp]

I’ve got a little bottle of neatsfoot oil that the seller included with the strop, would that work too?

Neatsfoot oil is excellent for leather.
I did not understand what is wrong with your strop.

 

[Alum of Potash]

In any case, the oil has been applied to an incidental area of the strop, which should not affect things apart from maybe a visual improvement. But if the wear has been introduced by your stropping, and was not there before, then perhaps that side of the stop was swollen due to humidity issues or there is an imbalance in your stropping technique whereby contact with the strop is only really taking place in the worn areas in question. For the former, measure both sides to see if there is a significant difference in thickness. If the latter is the case, then I would suggest applying a straight up-and-down stroke, rather than an X-stroke if that's been used, for several shaves to see if only the heel of the razor continues to shave to confirm this. As always with stropping, a lot has to do with how one grips the shank during the process.

Taking a burnisher to the worn side wouldn't hurt in any case, especially if it's swollen due to humidity issues.

 

[Seelector]

Neatsfoot oil is excellent for leather.
I did not understand what is wrong with your strop.

This is how it looked when I got it in February

And now I have these scuffs along the right edge (I strop right handed)

 

[Seelector]

In any case, the oil has been applied to an incidental area of the strop, which should not affect things apart from maybe a visual improvement. But if the wear has been introduced by your stropping, and was not there before, then perhaps that side of the stop was swollen due to humidity issues or there is an imbalance in your stropping technique whereby contact with the strop is only really taking place in the worn areas in question. For the former, measure both sides to see if there is a significant difference in thickness. If the latter is the case, then I would suggest applying a straight up-and-down stroke, rather than an X-stroke if that's been used, for several shaves to see if only the heel of the razor continues to shave to confirm this. As always with stropping, a lot has to do with how one grips the shank during the process.

Taking a burnisher to the worn side wouldn't hurt in any case, especially if it's swollen due to humidity issues.

It definitely wasn’t there before, I posted a picture a minute ago of how it looked when I bought it.

Measuring the thickness was a good idea, it’s a touch thicker along the right edge. I put a straightedge across the strop and the left side has a bit of a beveled edge where it starts to get thinner a few mm before the edge. The right edge has no bevel, there’s no gap under the straightedge all the way to the edge. In the middle of the strop where I didn’t put any wear on it, both edges have a bevel.

 

[Frank Shaves]

When I enlarge the photo from February, I can see a dark area on the right edge a bit above the lettering on the bottom. To my eyes, something had happened to the edge and someone had darkened the edge.

 

[jj_sharp]

Is your strop cupped?

 

[Alum of Potash]

When I enlarge the photo from February, I can see a dark area on the right edge a bit above the lettering on the bottom. To my eyes, something had happened to the edge and someone had darkened the edge.

That was my impression as well. Thanks for pointing it out.

 

[Seelector]

Is your strop cupped?

I checked just now and yes it has a slight cup with the edges a bit higher than the middle. Can I gently bend the strop the other way to get rid of it?

 

[Seelector]

When I enlarge the photo from February, I can see a dark area on the right edge a bit above the lettering on the bottom. To my eyes, something had happened to the edge and someone had darkened the edge.

Yep there’s a dark streak running basically the full length of the right edge when I received it. A little bit along the left edge too in places. Something happened to it in its past life.

 

[Seelector]

Taking a burnisher to the worn side wouldn't hurt in any case, especially if it's swollen due to humidity issues.

What do you mean by “take a burnisher to the worn side”?

 

[Alum of Potash]

What do you mean by “take a burnisher to the worn side”?

A burnisher is a tool used in woodworking to create a burr on a card scraper. It consists of a smooth, long narrow rod and a handle. With strops that I've made for mostly personal use, I've used one with good results to round the edges of the strop. To do this, I put some pressure on the burnisher in passing along edge which is aligned with the edge of a table so that the burnisher can pass at a 45-degree angle. This also serves to diminish the thickness of the strop by compressing it. In your case, where the thick area enters a little into the stropping surface, I would suggest making the pass at a lower angle.

The round shank of a large Philips-head screwdriver can also be used, under the condition that it must be smooth and free of burrs, as having a burr risks to introduce scratches.