Thread: Handamerican cordovan!

A couple months ago i ordered 2 strops from Keith at handamerican, he went through some trouble having problems with his computer, his assistant had to leave and a few other things came up so he wasnt able to get the shop going well for a while....to make up for it he send me a 3rd strop (free), and i must say i LOVE this strop.
It is made of a leaher i had only seen once, scott (honedright) wich we all know has the coolest and most efficient stropping on the planet uses it as his daily strop.

This leather feels super smooth and is very flexible, it smells and feels like the leather you will see in really high qualitty shoes. Once you have feel/seen this kind of leather you will remember it for ever.
The stropping is adictive....i pulled out my stash of razors and was just playing with them and got them all stropped, after 2-3 razors i could feel a very nice draw developing.....
The strops came with a diamond like pattern pressed in the the back strop ( both of them are double strops) i understand this was a method used by the russians to set up the edge, and keith really recomends it.

I will try and post some pictures of it soon, ( i usually ask my wife to do the pictures for me...not good with this technicall stuff...i know..not a valid excuse these days anymore...)
So if you are somebody like me ....that was waiting for handamerican strops....don't worry they should be on their way.!
Thanks keith and SRP.
Does anyone know anything else about this type of letaher? why is not used anymore? how is the leatehr treated?
thanks guys.

Cardovan leather is still used for strops, at least the one I bought new a few months ago is made from it. Made in Kanyama in Japan. Sold by a german site, raspur.

I contacted keith from Handamerican directly wanting to know more about this leather and this is what i got as an answer...

"The leather that you are talking about is horse butt. It was bark
tanned
and then processed in the Cordovan style.

What that means is that the tanned hide has been pasted with specific
emollients and stacked for months in order for those emollients to
saturate through the hide.

The process was brought over from North Africa to Southern Spain
hundreds of years ago by the Moors, who settled in and occupied the
city
of Cordova/Cordoba and surrounding area, thus giving the process it's
name.

This treatment has been modernized and now oils are infused into
leather
using heat and pressure which speeds things up a bit. However, your
horse butt was treated in the Cordovan style by the only company that
processes in that manner in the USA.

I often treat my own leathers in this manner, and not only
strops, but winter work boots and jackets as well.

In either case leather is treated this way to make it supple and as
water proof as possible. In a hot, dry climate such as you would find
in
Southern Spain and North Africa this is vitally important as wet
leather
subjected to heat will dry and crack making it useless as a garment.
Also, leathers that have a high oil content are typically used for tack

and bridle, or leather used on livestock. Latigo has a much higher oil
and wax content than you would find in a typical bridle leather. The
other strop that you have is made of English bridal. I prefer it to
latigo because it's surface does not have the wax content of latigo and

does not interfere with the blade contacting the hide.

My visits to North Africa and Southern Spain greatly contributed to my
knowledge of leather and how it is processed. Spanish leather is
considered to be among the finest in the world. It's interesting to
note
that every region of the world that tans leather uses different
mediums.
Oddly enough, Moroccan leather is tanned using pigeon droppings - it
works."

Note to self...
Never buy a strop from Morocco.

Well pigeon poop seems interesting as a tanning media... but my all time favorite is brain tanned so soft and supple ...

"it is so amazing each animal has just enough brain to tan their hide" (Greatwhitehunter)