Thread: Home made paddle strops... sort of

Since I purchased a shave-ready straight razor from the classifieds here a while back and have started shaving with it I needed a strop. I don't have the money to buy one at the moment (I've spent waaay too much money on shave gear already, and I'm unemployed so I don't have that much money to spend to start with). However, since I make knives as a hobby, I had some leather laying about which I thought could be used for this purpose.

The leather in question is 2.5 millimeter thick vegetable tanned leather which I had made into a temporary, rectangular sheath for a dirk/dagger I made. Since I have made another sheath for the dagger the temporary sheath was just taking up space in my bag of leather scrap. I cut the sheath open, separating the two leather pieces, and glued them to a couple of about 3 millimeters thick balsa planks (which I've been using to make presentation boxes for the knives I've sold). I glued the meat side of the leather onto the balsa, leaving the skin side for stropping.

Having read that the strop should have a "suede" finish, not a completely glossy finish like this leather had, I decided to sand the leather, using 150 grit sand paper around a sanding block. The finish this gave the leather is reminiscent of suede, but the "burr" is very fine. This did create some "drag" for the razor when I used the strop, so I think it works as it should. I kept one "paddle strop" like this.

The other paddle strop got a coating of polishing paste. I bought a chunk of paste which looks like a cylinder of chalk, and I usually use it to polish knife handles to a nice glossy finish on a buffing wheel. I rubbed the chunk of paste on the strop and it seemed to coat it with a fine layer of the white powdery stuff. Hopefully it will work as a "pasted paddle strop".

Any thoughts on this method of making one's own strops?

My thoughts:
1) I'd finish the leather with 600 instead.
2) My home-made bench hone has smooth leather on it, without any roughing.
3) I'm not sure how fine the abrasive particles are in that polishing compound. What you really need is 0.5 micron and maybe 1.0 micron. If you want to go fancy, you can also get 0.25 micron diamond.

I may redo the finish on the strops with finer grit sandpaper, then.

As for the polishing paste, I have no idea exactly how fine it is, and since I don't have the money to spend on stropping paste I have to make do with what I have. I do know that the paste on the buffing wheel gives wood, plastic and steel a mirror finish, so it has to be pretty fine.

The leather must be sanded?

The leather I had, had a glossy finish. I read that leather used for strops should have a "suede" finish to give some drag when you strop the blade. So, I sanded the leather to get that "suede" finish. I'm no expert, though. It's possible that the glossy finish would have worked just fine.

A smooth "natural" finish would work. Natural meaning the actualy smoothnes of the beasts skin. Some leathers will have an artificial gloos or polish to the hide which is less desirable. The sanded idea works well too. I have some natural hides which were buffed and look very slightly sanded. I think one of our new UK trop makers has just used a similar leather with good results. Jemico strops have a similar finish as well.

Tony

tankyou!