Thread: Extreme Stropping Video

Originally Posted by CaliforniaCajun

How does a kangaroo strop differ from others? I think stropping is my weakest skill of all the things related to straight shaving. I downloaded your video and intend to watch it many times. Thanks.

You are most welcome!

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

I believe they are very pliant and soft, a trait that I like a lot in a strop. Might be better for those with a little experience. Jimbo will probably correct me later and add some more info.

Kangaroo leather is very thin (the one that I use in the video is < 1mm thick). It can be supple and pliant, as Alan says, but it can also feel like plastic too - it really depends on the tanning process I think.

I agree with Alan that a kangaroo strop might be best left until you gain a bit more experience with stropping - not because you need any more skill to use one per se, but mainly because they are so thin that any moderately serious mis-stroke will most likely cut the strop in two. There is very little margin for error with them being so thin.

Kangaroo leather is, weight for weight, the strongest leather there is. It also is a very fine-grained leather which is what I think leads to it being such a good medium to strop on. There is a very mild but noticeable draw with kangaroo, while at the same time the surface feels slick-ish. It is very hard to explain actually.

The other thing I like about the Kangaroo is that it can take, quite easily, a bit of pressure - you may have noticed the deflection under the spine in the video - that is pretty typical of how I strop on these strops. I am not deliberately adding pressure for the sake of it, I am searching for the "feel" that I know yields a good edge. It just so happens that that "feel" starts to occur with some pressure on these strops and happily these strops can handle that quite easily due, again I think, to the thinness. On the other hand, this is not necessarily the case with my other strops (cow and horse).

James.