DIY beginners strop

[DublDutch]

To some of us a buying a strop is a serious expense and chances are if you're a n00b you're gonna cut it up anyway. That seems like a waste of money to me so why not make your own practice strop and buy a nice one once you've got the hang of the art of stropping?

Here's what you need:
- An old belt (Plain leather one. Needless to say without any nails or fancy decoration in/on it)
- An old pair of Levi's (any other brand will do )
- A tube of contact glue (I used Bison-kit, but don't know if they sell it abroad. Most important thing is that the glue stays a bit flexible otherwise your strop ends up as stiff as a board)

Here's what you do:
1. Cut a piece of the jeans at the same width and slightly shorter lenght then the belt.
2. Smear a thin layer of glue on the backside of the belt and let it dry for a few minutes
3. Apply the strip of denim (with the lighter side facing upwards) to the belt and apply pressure to make sure it sticks.
4. Let it dry for half an hour and there you go: your very own practice strop
(5.) My belt still had a leather ring on it to attach it to a radiator. If yours doesn't you might want to drill a hole in it and attach a piece of nylon string to be able to hang your strop.


Ps. I've only been using mine to practice stropping on it with a dull blade for a day and it seems to be working well. If everything comes undone in a week or so I'll let you know.

[Sailor]

Back when i started to use straight razors i had only late grandfathers two razors and no any knowledge on razors at all, except i remembered him using regular belt for stropping back in the early 70's.
So i thought that i should learn to strop with a regular belt also before trying to purchase a 'real' strop.
I still use a Red Army belt for stropping, and the results have been ok for me i think. Propably will buy a real TM strop soon, just to see how much better result it gives.

[braxis]

Cool tutorial

[Deryan]

Answered one of my questions about strops,thank you