Thread: Homemade canvas strop

Hey all!

This is my first post to your engaging forum.

I had the joys of traditional wet shaving revealed to me just recently by my partner when she gave me a safety razor set for our anniversary halfway through this year. I've loved DE shaving so much, I can't wait to start shaving with a straight blade.

While preparing to own and maintain a straight razor and, having acquired a natty leather-only strop, thought I'd share the latest part of my personal shaving project: making a canvas strop from a piece of heavy-woven 100% canvas bought from a local upholster...





I found a nice heavy weave, which I thought appropriate.
After cutting a doubled length of the canvas to size (as you can see, I didn't get the edges as straight as I would have liked ) I wrapped it round steel tubes I'd cut to size and pinned the flap, reinforcing the pinning with fabric glue. It seems to hold up to a fair tug now it's hung up, so I'm hoping it'll function as a half-decent linen strop.

Let me know what you think!

Excellent way to get started!

Looks like it should do the trick. Welcome to SRP. Be sure to introduce yourself in the introduction section. This site is full of helpful guys that will answer any questions you may have.

It looks functional and will likely do what it needs to do.

That will work, canvas will fray a bit, but will eventually stop fraying and the weave will lock in the fibers tight.

If it is a Cotton Canvas, you can burn the frayed threads with a match or lighter, BUT if it is Polyester Canvas, do not use a flame, the whole thing will go up in flames in seconds.

Iron on fusing tape also works very well to bond canvas to itself, is inexpensive and easy to apply.

Just trim with with a sharp pair of scissors. You can learn to strop on Canvas/Linen, but once you master the technique, will get a better edge using leather. Use the canvas/linen to clean the blade and add a bit of keenness, then leather to mellow/smooth the edge for comfort.

The importance of stropping to maintain a razor cannot be overrated.

Welcome to the forum.

Originally Posted by Euclid440

That will work, canvas will fray a bit, but will eventually stop fraying and the weave will lock in the fibers tight.

If it is a Cotton Canvas, you can burn the frayed threads with a match or lighter, BUT if it is Polyester Canvas, do not use a flame, the whole thing will go up in flames in seconds.

Iron on fusing tape also works very well to bond canvas to itself, is inexpensive and easy to apply.

Just trim with with a sharp pair of scissors. You can learn to strop on Canvas/Linen, but once you master the technique, will get a better edge using leather. Use the canvas/linen to clean the blade and add a bit of keenness, then leather to mellow/smooth the edge for comfort.

The importance of stropping to maintain a razor cannot be overrated.

Cheers,

It's cotton canvas. Proved this to myself by burning off a few frays I'll look out for fusing tape next time I visit the hardware shop.

I figure that if I make a few of these (as you can see, got plenty of material left), I might also use one or two with different pastes. I'm going to start just plain linen and leather stropping, however.

You can get the Fusing tape at a Fabric Store or sewing section of Wal-Mart, comes in rolls of various widths or in sheets if you wanted to cut, to a particular shape.

Iron on one side, remove the peel off backing, a wax paper and iron on the other side. Have never had one come apart.

Canvas makes a great pasted strop, just go sparing with the paste, 3-inch X’s work for me and once pasted will last years. There are several threads on pasting strops in the strop forum.

You can also buy a 2-inch D ring from Ace Hardware or Tandy, then just cut out a couple notches in your 3-inch strop to accommodate the D ring.