Thread: My stropping experiment

Today I made a hanger for my strops. I put it up before asking my wife for permission! She has been shaking her head at me more than usual the last couple of days.

Since the picture I have added graphite to one. I was deciding what to use and my daughter said that didn't we use graphite for the Pine Wood derby cars. I looked in an old box and there was a tube of it. She is home for spring break and that must have been about 15 years ago. It made me happy to know that not all of what I was trying to teach the kids over the years has gone in one ear and out the other.

I am starting to wonder what I have started for myself. It is going to take a long time to try each these things out once a day to make a good judgement. Tim

Isn't graphite a lubricant? I'm using lampblack on newspaper (wrapped on a glass sheet). My regular strop is newspaper without the lampblack; giving me good results (and all I can afford for now).

Originally Posted by slickshave

Isn't graphite a lubricant? I'm using lampblack on newspaper (wrapped on a glass sheet). My regular strop is newspaper without the lampblack; giving me good results (and all I can afford for now).

That is what I think also. I have used the strop once and it has no draw. Hardly any resistance. No friction in my mind equals no heat so it would even take that possibility out of the question. It is very soft so I have a hard time believing it does much of anything. That being said I used it last night for the first time. I used to many variables to determine anything but the shave was fine so it didn't hurt anything.

Each of these strops cost me about as much as 4 Sunday papers so cost isn't much of an issue.

Tim

Tim, you are nuts! Hehehe.
I am looking forward to your conclusions on this...

What did you use to sew the strops?

I use graphite as a lubricant on my bass bridge to keep the strings from grabbing during installation or tuning. That is also why it is used on the wheels of your pinewood derby car.

I think Lynn brought up putting graphite on a strop. I tried it, and probably won't repeate because it leaves black on the towel. Does make it nice and slick though.

Those strops look great!

Getting this thing posted is more work than the strops. :-]

I had some questions about how I did this and I was short one D ring from the 2 3/4 inch strop so I decided to finish it and take some pictures.

First I measured



Then I used a 1/2 inch punch to make some partial holes. For the the 3 inch strops the holes were bigger.




Then I folded it and cut the rest of the V's with a scissors



Next put on some contact cement to glue.



Next, marking my lines and the tool I used to punch the holes. It is not relly a punch. It splits the leather for the hole and allows the leather to close back up after stitching. The marks are very important, at least to me!



My block of wood and the basement floor. Not very ergonomic!



Another view on the bench.



The final product with some of the tools next to the one I put graphite on. I decided to mark them in the rectangles although I don't think that I will forget which one has graphite on it.




I hope this helps and answers some of your questions.

Tim

Originally Posted by HNSB

What did you use to sew the strops?

First I glued them together with contact cement. Then I used a 4 prong thonging chisel to make the holes. Then hand sewn with waxed thread.

Not hard to do but I could certainly tell the first one from the last. One thing I learned is in the future I should use a more ergonomically designed piece of fire wood and a pad for my rear while sitting on the floor of my basement punching holes.

Tim