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