Leather Strop Maintenance
- This topic has 12 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 01/04/2020 at 7:30 am by
.
-
I haven’t tried a leather strop yet. People such as Ken Schwartz, and ytreich of knifeforums have stated that lexol leather conditioner works best on any kind of leather and doesn’t harm the strop. ytreich appears to me from his other posts to be very creative, methodical and careful in his work making and sharpening knives, and I will try lexol when I get strops.
Working to make knife.wickededgeusa.com a great forum!
1 user thanked author for this post.
I confess to be one of the laziest members of this forum when it comes to WE product maintenance. In reality, I also don’t maintain my gear because I want it see where it can fail. When it comes to strops, I don’t do anything except occasionally add more paste and lightly mist them with rubbing alcohol before use. They get black and kind of ugly looking but they work great.
-Clay
1 user thanked author for this post.
Hi All – Quick admin note, to try and avoid any confusion. While I think this is a great thread, I (the “Developer” profile) didn’t originally create it. As it was from 2015, and we’ve updated our forum a couple of times, migrating old posts as we go, many of the old posts got reassigned to my profile as the original user no longer had an account.
So, please keep up the great discussion, just know that I’m not actually the author of the 2015 topic.
Working to make knife.wickededgeusa.com a great forum!
To the best of my knowledge, the strop compounds, sprays and emulsion are aqueous bases, (i.e. water based distribution vehicles).
I agree that oils like neatsfoot oil have been used to treat leather for years and years, to maintain suppleness. I don’t know that’s necessarily the best mix with the aqueous stropping compounds/vehicles.
I have found using isopropyl rubbing alcohol misted on the leather seems to dry out my leather strops and leave the leather hard and stiff.
I don’t know the answer. It would seem to me a water-based leather cleaner/conditioner might be the way to go. Maybe a “Lexol” product.
I just scrubbed my well used leather strops with dish soap on a dish sponge with a 3M scotch pad on it. The blackened leather came clean. Better then I’d expected. I applied Meguiar’s auto leather cleaner/conditioner. I like how they feel. I’ll see if they feel any differently after reapplying the strop compound and using them.
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)5 users thanked author for this post.
MarcH said: I agree that oils like “Neatsfoot Oil” have been used to treat leather for years and years, to maintain suppleness. I don’t know that’s necessarily the best mix with Aqueous stropping compounds/vehicles.
you are right marcH I do not put abrasives on my leather strop’s.
I do not know the answer either.
1 user thanked author for this post.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.