Thread: Making a Strop?

I was just curious if anyone has ever used machinery belting leather to make a strop. A friend gave me three leather belts off of some old eqiupment in a factory. The belts are all about six feet long by 5.5" wide and extremely smooth on the outside and just a little rougher on the inside where it made contact with the drives of the equipment. Here are some pictures of what each side looks like. Any Ideas?? BTW This leather is about a quarter inch thick.

Well, it looks like it's going to take some sanding to get it smooth, and if they are cut in half, you'll have 36 feet of 2.75" leather. Maybe you could just ask Tony Miller to make you a custom strop or two in exchange for the rest of the leather?

Is it covered with oil or grease?

May be able to clean it up. My strop is about 3/16 so it does work.

No there is no oil or grease on any of the belting, they really don't look like they were ever used other that some scuffs and very few indentations. One side is extremely smooth, like glass. The photos don't do them justice.

Looks like you have a life-time supply of strop leather! Sand it up and you'll be good to go. Awesome find!

I'm actually disappointed that you did not get more responses about this leather. I'd really like to know if anyone else has recycled leather like this. On my parents' farm, we used to have three of those old 8-10 inch wide belts that were mounted on a drive wheel on the side of a tractor to drive a circular woodcutting blade that was nearly three feet in diameter. Those belts were at least 50 feet long and about a quarter inch thick. My dad hung on to them for years long after the last time we used them, always figuring that they were bound to be worth something to someone. I don't know what happened to them but I'd guess they ended up in the dump. Now with this post, I'd finally have an idea for what my dad could have done with those belts.

If anyone cares, these are the type of belts I'm talking about.
Ah, such memories of the dangers of growing up on the farm, where at one stretch, I had to get a tetanus shot four years in a row!

I would look at the leather real good with a loupe and look for any small metal shavings that might be embedded in it. I can only assume that whatever machines that these belts were driving, they may have been exposed to an environment of dust, which may have included very small metal shavings, or other micro-dust sized particles. These could damage something as delicate as the fine edge of a razor. Just my TCW.

Hell you could just fire up the tractor and hold the razor to the belt for a second or two and flip.

Thats a strop.

I think it is possible.

I bought commercial leather, commercially tanned and harvested, no reason why you shouldn't get the same results from these.

I have a friend that makes leather drive belts like these, and have talked to him about it a bit.

First, for drive belts you never put any kind of grease or anything on them except like neatsfoot oil or other leather dressing.....perfect for a strop!

Second, they are ALWAYS made of vegetable or smoke tanned leather since the alternative chemicals used to tan leather WILL corrode metal quickly.....perfect for a strop!

Finally, the leather has to be very uniform in thickness and free from surface blemishes since it will be riding on a convex pulley....Perfect for a strop!

I have a chunk of his scrap that I am going to use for a pasted paddle strop in a week or two and will get a longer piece from him to make me a new hanging strop whenever he has some spare leftover...

Thanks for the idea!