Thread: Handamerican Leather Choices

Just wondering why you would need both a red and black latigo? Isn't one sufficient?

variety is the spice of life. The black has a higher drag rating. You can tell a significant differnce. Mike B

I'm not trying to be argumentative, just trying to learn something new about strops that might help me in deciding future purchases.

If the black has a higher drag rating, and assuming that the higher the drag rating the better, then why get something else? Or, is it simply more is better?

Originally Posted by Duke

I'm not trying to be argumentative, just trying to learn something new about strops that might help me in deciding future purchases.

If the black has a higher drag rating, and assuming that the higher the drag rating the better, then why get something else? Or, is it simply more is better?

Basically, it comes down to this: HA puts two leather sides on their strops, not just one, so you can get one with a higher drag and one with a lower. Certain razors respond better to different leathers. So far, the red and black latigo have given me the best "feel" and best results. Some of my very delicate ground razors work better with less drag, like on the natural side. (I have 6 ), so you get twice as many options with an HA strop.

I really like the feeling that the leather is sucking the razor blade against it as with the higher drag. I don't like it to slide across as if on ice. I guess knife stropping also has different requirements. Keith has a different reccomendation for knives on his site. Mike B

So what would you veterans of the HandAmerican products suggest for a set to start off with? I havd a strope from Tony Miller and I really like the bench hone idea of the HandAmerican gear. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thankyou.

-Tye

I suggest Natural smooth on one side and Black Bridle(not listed on his site yet) with a Diamond cut on the other.

Size what ever your preferance. Kieth is really good with custom orders. I don't have his natural but I do have other strops similar. That would give a good contrast. My 2cents. MikeB

That hardware on his strops is unreal. It is much stronger that that on many old strops.

Joe,

I'm trying to sort things out. Is there a rule of thumb about drag vs. delicate ground razors and not delicate ground razors, or do you just have to wing it? In other words, should I always use a light drag strop on a 6/8 fully hollowed blade and a high drag strop on half hollowed wedges? It appears now that one has to make the same kind of decisions on selecting unpasted hanging strops as one does in selecting hones of differing grits. The fine art of straight razor shaving keeps getting more complicated the deeper I get into it. So much to learn and so little time....

Best,
Ken

Ken,
In all honesty, this won't make a tremendeous difference. A good piece of latigo leather will work well on any grind. Which is not to say that I wouldn't like to have a better variety of strops along my wall With that being said, if you have a greater variety of delicate grinds, it may not be a bad idea to go smooth and vice versa. If you've already made your purchase from HA or TM, enjoy it as you got a quality item that WILL do the job.

Thanks for that. The only reason I got involved with this thread is because I just received a new TM #1 best 3" latigo strop in a private trade. Before this I was using a TM #2 grade 2 1/2" latigo. I was amazed by how differently they performed. The #1 best strop had a #5 draw compared to a #3 draw for the #2 1/2" strop. Man, the razor almost stuck to the strop. The difference was like night and day. So now I have a similar set up as Joe described, a high draw strop and a lighter draw one. Only mine is on two separate strops. So you can see why I was interested in understanding when it would be better to use one or the other.