Hi all. Been lurking and reading and getting things prepared to give straight razor shaving a try and have a question. I've read countless posts saying the new strops on eBay are generally junk (I'm talking about the ones they'll ship with the zeepk's, for example). I've also read numerous posts about people going into a Tandy leather shop, getting a piece of scrap and having a functional strop. Could someone explain two things to a newbie: What makes the eBay strops junk, and what would I look for and do to a piece of scrap leather to make it a functional strop? I'm going to be buying my first (currently looking at Tony Millers with the practice strop option) as I don't want to add the "Is this a junk strop" variable to the equation. There are enough variables to start with. Thanks.