Thread: New strop is uneven.

Hi,

I just bought a new strop from ebay, Shark Designs Field Strop, and it is very well made with a lovely fuzzy surface, but when i pull it tight it sags slightly on one side. This means that I can't maintain even contact between blade and strop and end up with just an edge of the strop running along the blade mid stroke and killing my finely honed razor edge.

I emailed the guy about this and said that I should soak it and rub it at 90 degrees over the edge of a table to stretch it out then dry it laying flat.

I wanted to run this past the pros out there before I try this out and ruin a potentially good strop.

IO added some pics so you can see what I am on about, No matter how hard I pull it doesn't even up the sides, this is a thick piece of leather, about 3.5mm

Thanks people.

The pic didn't come up. My guess without seeing it is that is has to do with the way it is attached at the far end. If it is stitched out of square at the hanger it will pull unevenly. If that is the source of the problem maybe bringing it to a shoemaker or leather worker to have it squared up at the top would fix it ?

Here are the pics, top one is the good side, bottom one the sagging side.

I tried pulling on the sagging side only to compensate in case that was the problem but the strop would curve to a shallow c shape and still sag.

Thats a pretty good cup.

Maybe some strop dressing to soften the leather while clamping it betwixt two heavy objects may stretch it out.

I have no direct experience with this, but I've seen mention in threads previously about using strop dressing, then a smooth glass bottle to smooth the leather out.
Let us know if you work it out.

I've no idea how to fix it, but are you certain it is causing problems? If you watch videos of people stropping, no matter how hard they pull on the strop, it bows under the pressure of the blade. I'm sure none of us realise how much our strop sags unless we record ourselves stropping.

What I'm getting at is that if you ease up on the tension, use light pressure while stropping, and maybe use an x-pattern, you might get good results despite the unevenness.

I will probably get flamed for saying this, but a strop is not a hone, you don't need the same perfect flatness.

It was a big problem, in keeping teh blade flat only one side of teh strop would touch it as I went along the stroke, and teh pressure was uneven across the blade, but the real test was my razors were getting worse not better after stropping and since I´m still quite new to this I need to eliminate as many variables as possible.

However, I did what the seller recommended and soaked it in warm water then rubbed it at a 90 degree angle across teh round edge of a table top to stretch it evenly then laid it out to dry. It is much better but still has some problem, and now there is a very slight s shape as you look down on the strop, but at least now i can pull tighter on one side to correct things.

I am actually tempted to cut off teh 4 inches at teh end where there is more of a problem and sew the end piece back on a so that the curve is automatically compensated when I pull hard.

Thius is my travel and learning strop though, I have a SRD Latigo in the post which I can´t wait to use. After a few weeks with that I will have a much better idea what to expect and what I need to do to this ebay bargain.

I did break it in with lather and a bottle and it worked very well indeed, the leather is very light in colour and had a suede finish but now is tan coloured and smooth as glass.

And I´m off to test it right now.

Originally Posted by gingahippy

I did break it in with lather and a bottle and it worked very well indeed, the leather is very light in colour and had a suede finish but now is tan coloured and smooth as glass.

And I´m off to test it right now.

How do you mean you broke it in with 'lather' and a bottle?

As recommended here:

Strop treatment and repair - Straight Razor Place Wiki

it worked a treat.

Now I just have to sort out my new SRD strop, do they ever come ready????