the ugliest strop ever?

[monkeypuzzlebeefeater]

Before going any further with this post lets make one thing clear, this strop is ugly. It's very ugly. It's got to be the ugliest I have seen. Newspaper with a clip would look better. It's so ugly I tried three cameras to get a shot of it. It is pig ugly. If it went on a date with the elephant man he would be the looker. If it was the baby of a nice strop the nice strop would have eaten it at birth. It is an ugly strop.

Moving on...

Having recently been given an of cut off leather I did exactly what I should, decided to fashion a strop from it. When I say I should do, I generally mean anyone else, I'm rubbish at arts and crafts type stuff and really shouldn't try. None the less I carried on and prepared my leather. I gave it several days worth of applying lather and rubbing it as much and add often as I could.

Today I finally decided to give it a go and took my knife to it...



I had an old cheap ebay strop and used the hook from that. The handle end had a rather useful cut, I was going to remove the curved section and make a proper handle but I discovered that it actually felt pretty good so I left it for now.

I took a couple of razors to it, one long past needing a very good strop and one I know to be shave ready. The one needing a good strop was tree topping arm hair on 30 laps, it wasn't before I started. The one shave ready shows no signs of dulling. Of course the test will be the shave, but so far for something nature would reject its actually looking pretty good.

I'm off to shave, will update this in a while....

[Razorfeld]

If we went by looks alone the human race would have been extinct eons ago. As the old saw says, "The proof is in the pudding." Waiting to here the results of the shaves off of the "ugly duckling."

[ScoutHikerDad]

The ugly ones try harder...

[Phrank]

The ugly ones try harder...

LOL - reminds me of an old SCTV skit with Martin Short as, Brad Allan on Scrapco, Artisans and their Art, "you can't say that a girl who plays the tuba doesn't have a boyfriend somewhere?"

[monkeypuzzlebeefeater]

Well.......

Very smooth edge

[scotishcavalir]

I think this strop is like a situation I had in my youth. As an avid water-fouler, I found myself hunting with two friends. One friend had a gorgeous registered black lab, the other had an ugly mutt dog that looked as though it had mange. When the ducks started to fall, the lab sat in my lap while the mutt never missed a bird... I think you found a mutt, love it and you will have it forever.

[Hirlau]

The ugly ones try harder...

,and they're cheaper,,,,,

[Jimbo]

... As an avid water-fouler, ...

Remind me to never invite you to swim in my pool....

James.

[monkeypuzzlebeefeater]

I don't have many strops to compare its performance to. But the shave of it was very comfortable. It's early days with it but a good start. I will definitely need to get some hides and experiment with some more.

[thebigspendur]

Your razor doesn't have eyes. It could care less what the strop looks like.