Paddle-strop restoration

Attached, you will find pix of a paddle strop I picked up on Sunday at an annual street sale. As purchased, the paddle was fairly glazed over with ancient pastes, and had slight water staining and minor scratches. To return the paddle to a natural finish, I used wet/dry sandpaper in the following sequence: 240x, 400x, and 600x. Strokes were circular, without much pressure, using a small scrap of ash wood as a block. By the end, the leather faces had a very fine, suede-like, "Russian leather" type finish. I then coated the faces with Dovo red and black pastes as shown.

Questions I have regarding this are as follows: (1) does the sanding sequence seem about right? (grits finer than 600x yielded a more glossy finish); (2) should I have treated the leather with something before applying the pastes? (the untouched end areas seemed fairly natural to me, perhaps just darkened with age); and (3) have I applied enough paste here? (it has been lightly rubbed in, and in the past, I feel I have added too much--so perhaps it is better to start light like this and build on it later?).

First razor I stropped with it had too many traces of the paste on the blade's edge afterwards. Second razor, when stropped, went from slightly tugging to passing the HHT without too much paste residue on the blade.

Edit: since the original post, I've put more paste on both sides and rubbed it all in. No scribble marks any more.

im not very experianced but ide say that 600/700 seems fine i probably experimented with abit finer wet and dry

you probably just needed to rub the pastes in abit more or it wasnt dry did you use straight away or leave it for a day Luc sais to leave it for a while so it doesnt get wasted by ending up on your straig in his tutorial ?

You don't need much...Tony mentioned having to roll diamond paste into his latigo leather to make it stick. Since you have it sanded, it should stick ok.

Nice restoration btw

Thanks for the remarks. Yes, I did leave the paste on for a day, following the tutorial (which more specifically applies to diamond pastes). However, I think the trick was to rub the paste in a bit more with the forefinger. The first time, it was resting on the surface and easily transferred to the blade. Here are two more shots of the paddle after a second application of the pastes. The first appliction I rubbed in lightly with the palm below my thumb (keeping the motion as circular as possible), followed by a circular motion with the forefinger. Ditto for the second application, which filled the missed areas, making for the maximum coverage with the least amount of paste. Think I'll stop here for a while and see what happens. And the complete coverage seems to have answered my leather treatment question, since it is now "treated" with the pastes. Was 600x enough? Seems all right to me right now--especially as the paste tends to smooth over things. I have another (non-tensioned) paddle that was given to me with the advice being to use something in the 800x to 1000x range, so maybe I'll try the finer grits with it.

If you dig around I seem to recall a thread outlining when and why one would loosen and tighten the tension on the leather...whatever the advice was it was intriguing...so intriguing that I can remember the details .

Kentos said:

If you dig around I seem to recall a thread outlining when and why one would loosen and tighten the tension on the leather...whatever the advice was it was intriguing...so intriguing that I can remember the details .

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Good point. I'll look for it. Personally, I only tension until the handle starts to snug up a bit and the leather is sort of tight like a drum. I also sanded it like this, but while sanding, I had the idea to detension it and slide a thin board beneath the leather for a harder support. But the board would have been very thin, so thin that it probably wouldn't have helped.

One thing I am wondering about is detensioning the paddle when not in use due to atmospheric changes (the tensioned paddle strop not being used daily for my non-professional purposes). Perhaps it is better to back off the tension when not in use and then tension things up just before use? Still, the new tensioned paddles that I have seen were tensioned straight out the box...

Alum of Potash said:

One thing I am wondering about is detensioning the paddle when not in use due to atmospheric changes (the tensioned paddle strop not being used daily for my non-professional purposes). Perhaps it is better to back off the tension when not in use and then tension things up just before use? Still, the new tensioned paddles that I have seen were tensioned straight out the box...

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That is what I always suggest on this type of paddle. I would not leave mine under tension all the time. Yours looks really nice. Good job of the restoration!

Tony

Thanks Tony. Following your advice, I've released the tension on the strop and will keep it that way until just before use. --Alan