Thread: Fabric only stropping?

Howdy all,

I was wondering what you all thought of fabric only stropping.

I recently started using a small old seatbelt that is very fine and soft. I use it the step before my leather.

What if I used the new fabric as the only strop? Would it hurt the edge that much? Or would it still be shaveable?

Newsprint works as good as anything.

If your talking about fabric vs leather leather is the standard. Depending on the fabric I guess you could rig something up that would perform about as good as leather but by the time you find the right material and get the hardware and all you could probably have a basic leather strop.

The black fabric is the poly web that came with my strop.

The blue fabric is a seatbelt cord that i have and just started using today after the poly weave. So far from todays shave i would say it has added a smoother and sharper edge to my shave

And sometimes better than most!

Originally Posted by tracr

Newsprint works as good as anything.

I

basil,

Judging from your pics I'd say that your seatbelt strop would probably make a good intermediary between the webbed fabric and leather. But I don't think it could replace leather IMHO as it is not as fine.

By all means experiment though. Who knows, in 6 months maybe everyone here will be stropping on seat belts...

Originally Posted by Ryan82

By all means experiment though. Who knows, in 6 months maybe everyone here will be stropping on seat belts...

And shaving with cold water.

Originally Posted by Ryan82

basil,

Judging from your pics I'd say that your seatbelt strop would probably make a good intermediary between the webbed fabric and leather. But I don't think it could replace leather IMHO as it is not as fine.

By all means experiment though. Who knows, in 6 months maybe everyone here will be stropping on seat belts...

I agree it does fall nicely into place just before the leather.

I should have clarified tho. I didn't mean to just strop on fabric forever, I meant maybe for a week or so while vacationing or what not.

The belt is soft enough that you can fold it to take up less space in your luggage than any travel strop. And I don't see the belt wrinkling like the leather would if folded.

Leather does actually affect the edge in a process called burnishing, which you wouldnt get stropping only on fabric.

Fabric stropping is better than no stropping at all and would work as a short term solution for a week or so, but long term leather plus fabric is better IMO.

There were a couple of threads a while ago on seat belt strops.

Here's one: http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...ead-linen.html

One of the thoughts that came up was that it was ok, not as good as leather, but would be good for travel.

But as said above - who knows, maybe it will become the next best thing??

Btw - have you tried using a denim strop made from an old pair of jeans?
I use this as my fabric strop before leather.

All the best,
Michael