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Can I Save A Strop?

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  • #57467
    NorCalQ
    Participant
    • Topics: 54
    • Replies: 149

    I got some kind of course contaminate on one of my strops.  Is there any way to clean and save it?  The contaminate is not visible to the eye, however when I strop, scratches show up that weren’t there before.

    #57468
    Dwight Glass
    Participant
    • Topics: 0
    • Replies: 89

    Have you tried “Saddle Soap” some places that sell horse supplies have it, and some shoe stores.

    #57469
    tcmeyer
    Participant
    • Topics: 38
    • Replies: 2095

    I don’t think you can save them, except maybe if you did some aggressive scraping to try to dislodge the foreign bit that have embedded themselves into the leather.  The cost of replacement cowhide strops is only a few dollars and the value of the correct embedded media is too low to matter.

    I’ve tried several types of strop media beyond what WE offers.  I’ve made them out of maple, cedar, aluminum and brass.  Each seemed to work at some level, but were still subject to cross contamination.  The one nice thing is that I could remove the platens, flip them and remount them with a fresh face to start over.  Can’t do that very well with cowhide.  Or, in the case of the aluminum and brass, use them as substrates for DLF.  It is interesting that diamond particles seem quite happy to embed themselves in just about any media.  I haven’t used them for at least five years.  Maybe I ought to resurrect them.  I did like the brass, but didn’t use them much before I switched them over to DLF duty, so I don’t really know if they worked more like a strop or more like DLF.

    I just remembered another advantage of the metal platens – if you thought they were contaminated, you could re-lap them on a piece of sandpaper.

    #57470
    MarcH
    Moderator
    • Topics: 74
    • Replies: 2731

    I don’t think you can save them, except maybe if you did some aggressive scraping to try to dislodge the foreign bit that have embedded themselves into the leather. The cost of replacement cowhide strops is only a few dollars and the value of the correct embedded media is too low to matter.

    I agree with Tom, replacement is the best way to go to be assured of clean results.  If not replaced, you’ll never be confident in the results you’ll see.

    Tanned cow hide leather is inexpensive, easy to find and casy to cut to size.   The original W.E. cow leather strips were hot glued in place.  The old strips and adhesive residue are easily peeled clean from the plastic paddles.  New strips can be adhered with hot glue or contact cement is a good alternative.  I like to use 3M Super 77 Spray adhesive.

    I’m curious, was the “Gunny Juice” the culprit?

    Marc
    (MarcH's Rack-Its)

    #57471
    NorCalQ
    Participant
    • Topics: 54
    • Replies: 149

    Marc, on this strop I used WE l micron emulsion, so I don’t think it was the culprit.  At some point, I must have gotten sloppy.  The GJ is working fine so far.

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