Thread: Questions on strops

Yeah, I agree - waist high (or slightly higher) seems a natural height for stropping. Having said that I've seen head height stropping - it happens at a 45 degree incline - and the person seemed quite comfortable with it.

I suppose it depends on what you have available to hook it to, and what you are most comfortable with.

The illinois looks fine. To me, the leather on wood looks OK too, but a good strop needs to be smooth, so don't use it if it isn't. And of course be careful of those staples holding the leather to the wood. Some people find when starting out with stropping that a paddle strop (in essence what you have with the leather on wood) is easier as it is rigid with no sag.

Pasting a strop with abrasive compounds is a one-way street: once you go there you cannot ever go back (i.e., your leather is forever impregnated with abrasive and can never be used as a plain leather strop again). So keep that in mind when deciding what to do with the pastes. The choice is yours of course, but if it were me I wouldn't be pasting Illinois, I'd leave it as my plain leather strop. Perhaps just grab some balsa to start with, see how that goes.

If you strop well you can maintain the edge for a while. Though when you first start out that's probably not going to happen. You can also maintain (or touch up) an edge with the pastes and CrOx can be used for that, definitely. At this stage I'd concentrate on that, and think about stones down the track. Maybe something like a barber's hone could be useful, but I'd see how I went with CrOx (maybe whip up another leather on wood contraption for the CrOx, or as you say, try balsa).

James.