Thread: Question on Strop Prep

Recently purchased a wet shave set from SRD. Included was this strop:

Straight Razor Designs 3 Black Latigo Strop with Leather Handle - $64.99 : Straight Razor Designs, The Finest In Gentlemens Shaving And Grooming Needs

Leather on one side and what appears to be something like nylon belt webbing on the back.

Question: What, if anything, do I need to do to the webbing other than use it? If so, when in use, what purpose does it serve?

As currently setup for honing, I go from an 8,000x Norton water stone to this strop. Seems to me that is a big step to jump. Will the webbing above fill that gap?

Second question: Included in my order was a paddle strop, which has smooth leather on one side and roughout leather on the other. (hair side of an animal skin is smooth, meat side is rough). What treatment, if any, do I need to apply to the rough side? I'm guessing that a diamond paste in the .25 micron category might equal a 12,000x stone? Would that fill the gap mentioned? If not, what would?

If it's your only strop, don't put anything on the webbing, leave it as is.
You would be better off with a inexpensive balsa strop if you want to experiment with pastes/sprays.

Please do not use any pastes on that nice strop! If I were you I would either get one more stone @ approx. 12k and make a cheap paddle with some chrome oxide. Actually you should do both.

Like Blix says, leave the webbing alone, just use it as your every day strop.
The paddle strop gives you the opportunity to play around with pastes and spray.

The diamond spray in ,25 micron is way finer in comparison to a12K stone.
The equivalent grit size would be more like 60K, CrO would be similar in grit to a 30k stone.

I use CrO on a linen strop and diamond spray on hardpressed felt. I find that to work well