For years, I have been passing on strops in the wild. They were just too beat up, damaged, and generally look like junk. This shell strop was just to nice pass on. All the gold work was intact. It looked like it was never used and in great condition. That was until I got home and cleaned it. Once cleaned, the working surface was covered with scratches, nothing bad but not a surface I wanted to touch my steel. Time to go to work. Wet the surface and gave it a good sanding. Starting with 220 and ending with 1000. Over the last 2 weeks I have been feeding it with Neetsfoot oil, lite on the surface and heavy on the backside. Rubbing the surface down with my palm many times every day. The leather is 6-7 mm thick so it took a good drink. Now it is soft, slick, and supple. Has a slightly heavy draw to it. It is nothing like my Neal Miller Horween which is like glass. Nice addition to my horse leather collection. Pictured next to Neil Miller strop
Thanks, being I never did one before, I never thought of documenting the work including a before picture. Next one, there will be more
The leather finishes up surprisingly smoothly for the grit - I’ve started at 80 grit for the stinkers, lol. When the coarser grits are used, the leather a;pears lighter in color, but as you get closer to the finishing grits, say 1,000-2000, the color darkens and starts to shine. It’s an interesting process, and Iwasaki describes strop reconditioning in the chapter for barbers in his book. Just make sure that the strop is on a flat surface and you use a flat sanding block.