I have two Herold Solingen loom strops, one is Juchten (Russian?) and the other is Rindleder (Cowhide?) and I want to apply pastes to one of them. They both have nearly identical textures, with the Juchten being minutely slicker and the Rindleder having a mintely more draw on my finger tips. I have a tub of CrOx (0.5 micron) and a tub of FeOx (0.1 micron), which strop would be better to paste and which one would be better to keep plain/unpasted to use for final stropping?
Which Herold strop to apply pastes? (Juchten vs Rindleder)
- Thread starter Pedigree
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Have you tried both paste? If not, you may want to try them before you commit a strop to them.
Non corrugated cardboard, inside of a cereal box is a great substrate for testing paste.
Also keep in mind your results may be very different on a small loom and a hanging strop, especially if you are new to stropping. Pasted hanging vs loom/paddle and substrate can make a big difference in performance
I would paste the Veg tanned strop and go lightly on the paste. Make 2-inch X’s across the face. You can always add more paste but if you paste heavily, the paste will contaminate any other strop you put the razor on unless you scrupulously clean the razor and your hands. You can never remove all paste from a contaminated strop, though a minute bit of Chrome Oxide would be the end of the world.
Bottom line you don’t need much paste. My pasted shop strop, Polyester Sail Cloth is 10 years old, not been repasted and use almost daily.
Non corrugated cardboard, inside of a cereal box is a great substrate for testing paste.
Also keep in mind your results may be very different on a small loom and a hanging strop, especially if you are new to stropping. Pasted hanging vs loom/paddle and substrate can make a big difference in performance
I would paste the Veg tanned strop and go lightly on the paste. Make 2-inch X’s across the face. You can always add more paste but if you paste heavily, the paste will contaminate any other strop you put the razor on unless you scrupulously clean the razor and your hands. You can never remove all paste from a contaminated strop, though a minute bit of Chrome Oxide would be the end of the world.
Bottom line you don’t need much paste. My pasted shop strop, Polyester Sail Cloth is 10 years old, not been repasted and use almost daily.
So you want to paste the two sides of one loom strop with the two pastes and leave the other one without paste? You could also paste one side of each and leave the other side plain, that would help in case of contamination, whereby only a minute amount of the same paste might be carried over to the plain side, not effecting things too much. If the latter course was followed, I would tend to paste whichever strop has more tooth on the surface (probably the Russian leather) with the coarser paste and the smoother strop with the finer paste. If both sides of one strop are to be pasted, then both pastes would go on the strop with more tooth. The paste has a smoothing effect on its own.
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- #4
I ended up pasting the Rindleder (cow hide) strop with the slightly toothier texture. Put CrOx on one side and FeOx on the other side. Kept the Juchten(Russian) unpasted.
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- #5
Pedigree, you did well in not applying paste to the Russian leather, as it’s a higher quality hide. My advice is to wipe the excess paste with a paper towel, as I feel from your photo that you overapplied
As for lap count, 5-10 laps on green and then another 5-10 on red after each shave should keep your edge sharp for a LONG time
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