Thread: Hard felt for hanging strops. Experiences?

I ordered some horse butt strips and some hard felt from Hand American some time back. I'm in the process of making a handful of hanging strops with them.

I have one nice prototype/testing strop done now. I assume the hard felt is the same as Hand American uses for the flat bed scary sharp hone system.

How many others have used this hard felt for stropping as a hanging strop instead of canvas/linen?

If you have, please share your experiences. I have not experimented with it much yet so the jury is still out, but here are my findings so far:

For a shave ready razor in the shaving rotation, I don't find much benefit. It may even degrade the edge a bit? I say this because stropping on the unpasted hard felt hanging strip makes for an edge that fails the HHT where it passes prior to the felt. The razor I tested this with was an extra hollow ground razor. A good stropping session on horsehide brings the same edge after the felt back to HHT.

The felt does work to a degree for certain; I took a small wedge razor ("Duluth Wedge") purchased recently from an antique store that did not have a sharp edge and stropped on the felt about 75 times. The same edge passed the HHT on the wedge. So maybe for stiffer grinds and wedges the felt works better???

Keith at Hand American says on the site that the felt works better than canvas.

Chris L

I saw Lynn using a diamond pasted felt board more like a paddle strap to finish sharpening razors at the carolina meetup event. I wonder if that is similar to the hard felt you mention

I have a piece of hard felt that I have been too chicken to use on a shave ready razor. There's something...unsettling...about dragging a clean sharp edge across a fuzzy surface like that.

Originally Posted by joke1176

. There's something...unsettling...about dragging a clean sharp edge across a fuzzy surface like that.

Unlike your face.

Originally Posted by Akady

Unlike your face.

Hey buddy....Your face.

but your avatar, joke1176...

Originally Posted by Chrisl

For a shave ready razor in the shaving rotation, I don't find much benefit. It may even degrade the edge a bit? I say this because stropping on the unpasted hard felt hanging strip makes for an edge that fails the HHT where it passes prior to the felt. The razor I tested this with was an extra hollow ground razor. A good stropping session on horsehide brings the same edge after the felt back to HHT.

Chris,

I have the same experience. Ordered a leather strap and a hard felt strip from Keith at HandAmerican. Some razors completely lost their edge on it, while others seem unaffected. I also agree with Joke1176 that there's something awkward to dragging a razor over it.
I haven't found much information about it, except that it's supposed to be great for quick burr removal when sharpening regular knives and utensils. Maybe, the very fine edge of a razor, resembling a burr to some extent, is also swiftly removed... Perhaps wedges with their sturdier edges are less affected.

For the time being, I've put it aside. Too many other experiments going on, to throw in a possible monkey wrench like that into my stropping practice. I'll stick with the linen on my Dovo strop for now.
By the way: the red latigo strap that Keith sent me performs great. He included two large pieces of horsehide as well, but I haven't turned those into strops yet.

Hope others will share their experiences too.

Bart.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

but your avatar, joke1176...

Oh yeah. lol. I forget that I am a drunken monkey sometimes.

One use for the hard felt that I have found works wonderfully is when it's cut up into little hand held squares and used with polishing paste (Maas, Flitz, etc) to get into the nooks, crannies, stabilizer bars of razors. WOW do those felt pads work GREAT for that! They have a hard enough edge to really get into the tight spaces, but they flare enough when rubbed to turn into a scratchless bristle machine.

I may end up cutting ALL of my hard felt into little squares and selling little resto packs of them for next to nothing.

Chris L