I noticed in a lot of the stropping vids, that peaple would massage the leather with their hands before stropping. What is the purpose of this?
Stropping oil?
- Thread starter wherndon
- Start date
My understanding is the oils from your skin condition the leather and the friction from rubbing the strop warms the leather, improves the penetration of the aforementioned oils, and prepares the leather for stropping.
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+1..but if helps "soften" the leather as well..leather gets a tad "stiff" when "laying around"...
- Thread starter
- #4
so, could it help to add an artificial oil to the strop? I have a table top strop at the moment, it doesn't have much "give" and I was wondering if some type of conditioner might be in order....
The only oil I am aware of which is used regularly on some strops is neatsfoot oil. With that said, it is a substance supposedly where "less is more" and over application is a common error. I'm sorry I cannot provide a more useful answer, however, someone here with far more knowledge than I will chime in soon.
Until then, using the oils from your hand should be fine but I would avoid the application of any other oil to your strop. Would hate for you to damage your strop.
When you say it doesn't have much give- do you mean it has a high draw or is it stiff? How does it feel while the razor is moving on the strop's surface?
- Thread starter
- #6
It is a cheapo table top strop, basically it's a strip of leather glued to a piece of wood. it does a pretty good job, though. I wanted something cheap to learn on...
I find, especially on my latigo, a little hand rubbing makes the strop more pleasant to use. It can become a little stiff and a quick rubdown gets it feeling soft and supple again.
As Joe says if you want to add oil use neatsfoot oil sparingly, make sure it's the pure oil and not the compound you get. Applying too much is easy, taking it off less so. Personally I'd give it a good rub down with some shaving lather, I use tallow based for this, and a cloth before thinking about adding oil.
As Joe says if you want to add oil use neatsfoot oil sparingly, make sure it's the pure oil and not the compound you get. Applying too much is easy, taking it off less so. Personally I'd give it a good rub down with some shaving lather, I use tallow based for this, and a cloth before thinking about adding oil.
Both shaving lather with Tallow, and neatsfoot oil work. I use both periodically to increase the draw on my strop. Once a quater Ill do lather mostly MWF after I shave in the morning. Just wipe it on and leave it till the next morning. Wipe it off with your hand and the strops draw increase. The neatsfoot oil when used is put on in stages till its loaded and then its allowed to sit for a day, then I wipe it off with a soft cloth to absorb the excess, dont use microfiber its kinda rough. On a daily basis the hand is king. For your table strop it may need sometime to break in for it to be functional. If you want to try neatfoot oil let me know and Ill get you some, its cheap and I bought a lifetime supply.
I have been straight razor shaving for about 10 months and still consider myself a novice. Rubbing my palm on my latigo strop helps keep the leather soft and its finish smooth. It also wipes off surface dust and debris that could adversely affect the razor's delicate edge. When stropping, I try to keep the contact felt between the razor and strop very light and evenly distributed. I am looking for a tactile feedback that is consistently smooth for the whole stroke and similar on both sides of the razor. If I start to detect any gritty feel developing, I stop, rewipe the strop surface with my palm and the blade with tissue, and resume stropping. This usually restores the expected tactile feedback.
I avoid putting or getting anything on the surface of my leather strop that may change its draw or feedback. I have noticed that my razors show less draw and more smoothness on the leather when they are first stropped on linen. Since I have been paying attension to these details, I have been getting better resulting from my stropping on my daily "shave test". If I start to lose stropping effectiveness, I strop 10 - 20 strokes on a pasted bench strop, wipe the blade, and restrop on my unpasted daily strop. This usually restores blade performance.
Like with honeing, there is a lot of mystery around stropping and varied discussion and opinions about what works best. If you pay close attension to tactile feed back, your shave tests will eventually tell you what is working for you using your equipment.
HTH
I avoid putting or getting anything on the surface of my leather strop that may change its draw or feedback. I have noticed that my razors show less draw and more smoothness on the leather when they are first stropped on linen. Since I have been paying attension to these details, I have been getting better resulting from my stropping on my daily "shave test". If I start to lose stropping effectiveness, I strop 10 - 20 strokes on a pasted bench strop, wipe the blade, and restrop on my unpasted daily strop. This usually restores blade performance.
Like with honeing, there is a lot of mystery around stropping and varied discussion and opinions about what works best. If you pay close attension to tactile feed back, your shave tests will eventually tell you what is working for you using your equipment.
HTH
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neatsfoot oil is easy to apply too much and difficult to remove, be careful.
Ditto on the care with Neatsfoot. You can end up with a black oil soaked strop very easily. I'd only use pure neatsfoot on a old strop off ebay or something, or one that has been in use for long, long time and needed some maintenance. Probably would apply it to the back only, if possible, so it could soak through and disperse some.
