Thread: Car safety belt instead of linen???

Just a quick thought, after seeing the nylon webbing that comes instead of linen with the SRD strops I got to wondering if anyone has tried using an old car safety belt before going to leather.

It looks like it wold be great but I haven't had a chance to try yet, maybe I'll take a trip to the scrap yard tomorrow and source something to play with.

Good thinking ! Let us know how it works out for you. Sounds like it would be a idea.

Yes, please tell us how this works. For the life of me I can't remember where I heard that seat belts work well, but I recall something like that. It's a tightly woven uniform surface. It may work superbly.

Chris L

I bet it will work... keep us posted!

Interesting idea! Would it be cheaper though?

I took a strop into a fabric shop the other day looking for some material so I could finish my red latigo strop I am building. The lady looked my old strop over, stretched the fabric, rubbed it between her fingers and said this is built just like what we call seat belt material. The strop I took in was just a cheap Herold rindleder strop, but I love the cloth side and wanted something similar.
She showed me what she had and it was a lot like a seat belt.

Not really much input but it's weird that it was just a few days ago and now there is a post about it?

Very interesting idea. I'm sure there are plenty of old seat belts laying around the junk yard here. Let us know how it works.

I don't know if seat belts 'abroad' are like UK seat belts, ours are very very tightly woven fine silky material, if you swipe your hand down them very fast, the friction generates a lot of heat.
The nearest material I have seen compared to a canvass strop is the old army webbing belts, it is exactly the same stuff (if not a touch stiffer) except olive in colour.
A good cheap source of seat belts would be a scrap yard. If you read the intructions on seat belts, they can be cleaned with washing up liqiud or dish soap as it is known in The US.

I'm going to try this though, what a damn good idea if you don't want to or can't afford a "real" one.
Thank you.

Well I will get back to you all when I get my hands on some raw material but I am still quite green to all this.

I've only just received an SRD latigo/nylon in the post (cleaning out the goose grease killed my other strop) and wouldn't say my experience with stropping was good enough to make any useful comparisons.

I wanted to throw a bone to the old dogs around here who can tell a good thing at a sniff (I mean that in terms of respect of course, no reference to actual years).

I would have much more faith in the opinion of most of you guys on here than in my own, I've been at this 6 months and have only just gotten to the point of a good clean shave with no pulling.



And I am actually in the UK so I am talking about the same tightly woven silky stuff as yourself Mr.Blade of Wales. I wasn't sure our American bretheren would know what a seat belt was, bless them.

Anyway, I'm off to my motorhome to have a ciggie and practice on the seatbelt in there, now a nick in that would be an expensive mistake.

I'm an old dog.........
Enjoy you dog end