Quote Originally Posted by Johnny J View Post
I bought an old strop on the Bay for $17 + shipping. IMO this is an infinitely better thing for a noob to do than try any of these substitutes. So there's my opinion. If you still disagree, well, we'll have to agree to disagree.
I'm not disagreeing with you that it's infinitly better, once again if you refer to some of my above posts I recommend a strop, I am just of the opinion that it's not, strictly speaking, needed and you can get by with other things.

I also bought a cheap vintage strop of the bay, and I think I recommended that in my first post as well!

See here, the first paragraph of my first post:

'You don't really 'need' a strop, but, I would highly recommend it and so will just about every one else. You can just use the palm of your hand, or newspaper, but it's less than ideal really. You can get some good strops for not a lot of money, so, wait until you see a deal and go for it.'