Thread: Homemade Cowhide strop

Okay,

So I have a side of leather at home, from the local Tandy's leather.

It's 8-10 oz vegetable tanned cowhide, new from the tanner, stiff and undyed.

Can I make a strop from this?

How would I prepare the leather?

Would the smooth side give more or less draw than latigo? If less, it's seems it would make a nice finishing strop, sort of a poor man's horsehide.

I bought a piece of finished latigo hide from a leather shop here.

I used the shiney side. See my post about Mr. Ugly.

Tough as nails but it will break in after 500 strops give or take.

I also bought hide like you have. Yeah, you can make a strop from it.

The way I did it was-

1) Planned out how I was putting it together (You don't want to go over 17 inches on the actual stropping area, it will sag if you try to use more).

2) I cut out the shapes. I found that a carpet knife worked well for keeping a straight line when cutting the leather. Exacto knives didn't work very well. My knife looks like this:

http://www.carpettool.net/103.jpg

3) Sanded the stropping surface, both sides.

4) I applied a few coats of neatsfoot oil. You can just use mineral oil if you prefer. The only reason to use neatsfoot it if you're concerned about the strop lasting longer, but you'll get at least 5 years or more out of it with mineral oil.

5) Stitched it together. Used a dremel as an awl.

It works pretty well, looks alright. I'm sure there are better ways to treat the leather and such, but I did what I thought was best based on the info I could find.

Pete,

Thank you. The length had me concerned after all the reading I've been doing on cupping. I'm still a little leery of using the stuff due to it's thirst for atmospheric moisture. I may give it numerous treatments of neatsfoot before fitting it with any D-rings and using it.

Originally Posted by Spatterdash

Pete,

Thank you. The length had me concerned after all the reading I've been doing on cupping. I'm still a little leery of using the stuff due to it's thirst for atmospheric moisture. I may give it numerous treatments of neatsfoot before fitting it with any D-rings and using it.

No problem.

If yours is like the stuff I bought its gonna soak up a ton of the stuff. Thats why I mentioned mineral oil, its cheaper and more readily available. Remember to treat both sides. The stuff I bought did bloat up and buckle if it got wet before being treated--I didn't realize that you needed to treat it at first.

Honestly, if I decided to make some more of these again I think that I'd just buy finished leather. I bought one of those scrap lots off ebay, and I haven't been completely satisfied with the stuff... but on the other hand I did get 1 hanging and three 4 sided paddle strops for about 35$ or less. You may have gotten a better quality product then I did, though.

You might want to try a test piece, where you get the surface prepared and attach it to a board to see what you think of the stropping surface of the finished side. You may want to use the sanded down back of the hides, instead, if you like their feel better.

Putting it on a paddle strop...

That's a winning idea. I was planning on making a paddle in the future anyway, for chromium oxide. The cowhide (smooth side out) would be a great addition to the opposite side of the paddle. Solves the whole cupping and bowing problem.

I guess a little Gorilla glue would work to attach the leather. Is this covered somewhere already, i.e., attaching leather to a paddle strop?

Most contact glues work well. Shoemakers glue is my choice for paddles.

Neats foot is a good quick option for softening leather but common lard applied occasionally to the flesh side of hanging strops is a good & inexpensive long term conditioner. I have maintained a strop for 26 years treated this way before retiring it.

Originally Posted by Spatterdash

Putting it on a paddle strop...

That's a winning idea. I was planning on making a paddle in the future anyway, for chromium oxide. The cowhide (smooth side out) would be a great addition to the opposite side of the paddle. Solves the whole cupping and bowing problem.

I guess a little Gorilla glue would work to attach the leather. Is this covered somewhere already, i.e., attaching leather to a paddle strop?

Theres a thread on it going on right now, but other then that I've just seen people mention what they did in random posts.

Wood glue and gorilla glue should be fine, I used both. After applying I clamped the leather between some boards to make sure it stayed even. You'll especially need to do this if you wet the leather for gorilla glue.