Will my strop be usable after rain?

T

TheStarman

Joined
Jun 7, 2012
Messages
26
Hi guys.

Beeing ever so keen, I went and made myself a leather strop. a long piece of 3" wide wood with 4 pieces of good quality leather mounted 2 each side. 1 smooth side up nude, (I was still debating whether to coat this side with oil..), and 3 rough side up loaded with Chromium oxide powder and neatsfoot oil, .5 and 1 micron diamond pastes.

After realising I had put too much Chromium oxide powder into the mix, I took the excess off and gave it a good soaking in oil.

Left it on top of the shed in the warm sun. Not hot but warm. Then.....

It poured with rain and 3 hours later I remembered it!!

obviously the leather has taken a lot of water in, but will it be okay to strop with when it's finally dried out or am I best starting again?
At the moment it looks erm.... Not nice :(

Many thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

Regards. Steve
 
I wouldn't worry too much about it. Even if you hadn't oiled it prior, the leather should still be OK. To some degree, the oiling likely helped protect the leather. If it turns out somewhat drier/stiffer after the water soak, sometimes even that can be a good thing for stropping. If you want to, you can recondition the leather with some appropriate leather conditioner (Lexol has a good reputation), and one of our resident experts on stropping also has recommended shoe cream (not polish) for reconditioning strops. Mineral oil also works fairly well.

Give it time to completely dry out, before using the leather conditioner or shoe cream. Let that dry for a bit, then re-apply your compound of choice after that.
 
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stoffi said:
Lay it in a book press and it'll straighten out if uneven.
Click to expand...

On that note, if it isn't flat anymore, a method that comes highly recommended by one expert (BF member 'stitchawl'), involves moistening the leather with water and using a rolling pin for a good long while (hour or two), to compress and flatten the leather. The biggest benefit of doing this is that it forces many of the natural abrasives in the leather (silicates) to the surface, which improves stropping performance. This usually applies to strops used without compound, because maximizing and utilizing the natural silicates is the desired end result. But, it certainly wouldn't hurt anything on a compounded strop either, I'm sure.
 
Ah that's good news thank you both.

A rolling pin... Now that's something I never would have thought of! It may help here as currently the edges have swollen quite a bit. Think it's going to take a fair few days to dry out. Especially with the weather here at the moment lol
It will teach me to try and mow the lawn, make a strop and help with dinner.... Really us men shouldn't try to multi task :rolleyes:

I'll keep an eye over it for the next few days and see if it needs some help staying flat.

SWMBO will be happy too as I won't have to make another one in the kitchen....until I get the higher grit pastes anyhow :D

Thanks again. Happy... Steve.
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
On that note, if it isn't flat anymore, a method that comes highly recommended by one expert (BF member 'stitchawl'), involves moistening the leather with water and using a rolling pin for a good long while (hour or two), to compress and flatten the leather. The biggest benefit of doing this....
Click to expand...

...muscles?

Someone actually rolled leather for an hour or two?!

Now that's dedication to a strop.

~ P.
 
pertinux said:
...muscles?

Someone actually rolled leather for an hour or two?!

Now that's dedication to a strop.

~ P.
Click to expand...

The hides used for the old high quality horsehide strops was pulled back and forth over the rounded ends of a log for several DAYS, not hours. The finished product was known as 'Russian Red Leather' and was the typical leather found in barber strops until the early 1900's. These days you pay a premium for strops with leather like this. The closest you can find these days to Russian Red is Shell Cordovan Horsehide, but it's been machine worked rather than pulled over logs by hand. Makes for a really nice strop! (Just set a knife next to one overnight and it get's sharper all by itself!)


Stitchawl
 
The good news is my strop dried flat and is fine... Pun intended lol

The .5 diamond paste is the only thing that suffered I think as pulling a blade across it drags like its made of eraser rubber!

So no rolling pin needed thankfully as my muscles wouldn't have stood minutes let alone hours or days.... Honestly DAYS! Eeek!

Thanks again for your advice guys.

Regards. Steve.
 
TheStarman said:
The good news is my strop dried flat and is fine... Pun intended lol

The .5 diamond paste is the only thing that suffered I think as pulling a blade across it drags like its made of eraser rubber!

So no rolling pin needed thankfully as my muscles wouldn't have stood minutes let alone hours or days.... Honestly DAYS! Eeek!

Thanks again for your advice guys.

Regards. Steve.
Click to expand...

If your diamond paste is like mine (I use DMT Dia-Paste), that stickiness is fairly normal, I think. Mine is based in mineral oil or something similar, and when first applied, it was rather sticky/gummy for a few days. It'll smooth out as the oil suspension gradually dries and/or soaks into the leather.

Good to hear it worked out OK. :thumbup:
 
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