Thread: Homemade Hanging Denim strop

Originally Posted by OldSalt

I don't want to be critical or anything, but the way the handle is made I would imagine that over the length of the strop it would bend in a U-shape when pulled tight, because the tension is more in the middle than on the sides. On factory leather strops you usually have a ring type handle or a sturdy, wide leather one to prevent that.

Maybe it doesn't happen or even matter on this kind of strop? What can you say?

Happy stropping,
OldSalt

I concur. In fact I made one similar to this, and that's exactly what I found happened.

Mario, are you still monitoring this post? I'm hoping for an update from you on this. Are you still using this strop? Did it turn out to be problematic? I made one and what I think I am experiencing is excessive convexing. I made a paddle strop with denim and it works well, but the hanging denim, pasted takes the edge off my razors in a hurry.

Did this pan out for you?

Well, their last post was 2 years ago, so I doubt it.

I have found that most flat materials, when stretched enough, will *probably* convex in some way. This can be exacerbated by the attachment method to the strop material. Just untie the string and use the strop as a handle-less version. See gssixgun's Stroptober video for more details on how to hold a strop that way.

Originally Posted by dinnermint

Well, their last post was 2 years ago, so I doubt it.

I have found that most flat materials, when stretched enough, will *probably* convex in some way. This can be exacerbated by the attachment method to the strop material. Just untie the string and use the strop as a handle-less version. See gssixgun's Stroptober video for more details on how to hold a strop that way.

I modified mine by stapling the top and bottom to a piece of wood. So the left to right folding was mitigated. But it still remained that top to bottom seemed to convex more then was useful for the razor's edge. After a 700 lap stropping session for the purpose of experimentation I managed to strop the shavability out of my test subject. On round two I stropped on a leather belt and found better results and less damage to the edge. So I am really wondering if anyone else has experienced this. Should I abandon the hanging denim as not-viable or am I missing the point somehow?

Originally Posted by Steve1150

After a 700 lap stropping session for the purpose of experimentation I managed to strop the shavability out of my test subject. On round two I stropped on a leather belt and found better results and less damage to the edge. Should I abandon the hanging denim as not-viable or am I missing the point somehow?

700 laps? That is kind of excessive... Or typo? Even with an added 0, 70 still sounds a little high.

Is the problem of convexity independent of the force used to hold the strop taut? You may want to consider making a paddle strop if that is the case. Paint stirrers were mention quite frequently in the past, especially since most hardware store give them away. I'm not too familiar with fabrics, so I'm not sure if the denim you are using is definitely well suited either or what other fabrics you could use. You could purchase replacement parts for fabric from SRD and experiment with making strops from those materials. It will be cheaper than a whole strop.

I've hear of some people over-stropping, even with good technique. The purpose of a strop is to simply realign the edge. The materials for fabric and leather are a very mild abrasive to accomplish this task. Essentially, you want to achieve the best realignment with the least number of laps. The numbers I have heard are usually 30-50 on fabric then 60-100 on leather. My regimen is 30 fabric then 100 leather, for post-shave drying 10 fabric/20 leather. I use my fabric simply because I have it, but I am thinking of modifying my strop to be dedicated to leather. Fabric has been used by many people, but just using leather has been done for ages.

Originally Posted by dinnermint

700 laps? That is kind of excessive... Or typo? Even with an added 0, 70 still sounds a little high.

Is the problem of convexity independent of the force used to hold the strop taut? You may want to consider making a paddle strop if that is the case. Paint stirrers were mention quite frequently in the past, especially since most hardware store give them away. I'm not too familiar with fabrics, so I'm not sure if the denim you are using is definitely well suited either or what other fabrics you could use. You could purchase replacement parts for fabric from SRD and experiment with making strops from those materials. It will be cheaper than a whole strop.

I've hear of some people over-stropping, even with good technique. The purpose of a strop is to simply realign the edge. The materials for fabric and leather are a very mild abrasive to accomplish this task. Essentially, you want to achieve the best realignment with the least number of laps. The numbers I have heard are usually 30-50 on fabric then 60-100 on leather. My regimen is 30 fabric then 100 leather, for post-shave drying 10 fabric/20 leather. I use my fabric simply because I have it, but I am thinking of modifying my strop to be dedicated to leather. Fabric has been used by many people, but just using leather has been done for ages.

700 is not a typo and also yes, excessive, deliberately. I stropped the blade excessively to gain the experience of the observations.

I did also make a paddle strop. The hanging strop is just more fun to use.

Originally Posted by Steve1150

700 is not a typo and also yes, excessive, deliberately. I stropped the blade excessively to gain the experience of the observations.

I did also make a paddle strop. The hanging strop is just more fun to use.

ahhhh, alright. Did you get to see the edge under magnification? How was the ultra stropped edge to shave with?

yes, I did 160x was the best I had to look at it. It was rounded out smooth. haha by 5-600 it was it was struggling to even cut hair. I did HHT about every 20-50 laps and shavetest about every 100. I bounced from non-diamond pastes, paraffin pastes, and un-pasted leather. Purely unscientific approach only intending to get the feel for how the razor responds in my hands. And I also wanted to see how the paraffin interacted since there isn't really anyone on here talking about ways to augment pastes or sprays.

You're right. Sounds like you decided to ride a rocket down the rabbit hole. How did the paraffin affect performance. I would think it would reduced the effectiveness of the past?

Originally Posted by dinnermint

You're right. Sounds like you decided to ride a rocket down the rabbit hole. How did the paraffin affect performance. I would think it would reduced the effectiveness of the past?

The idea of the paraffin was 2 parts.
1. To provide friction for heat, and feedback without any cutting at all. In this regard it seems to work very well.
2. To pre-load the strop with something cheap so that the internal fibers of the strop do not soak in the expensive diamond products, etc. It also seemed to work well for this too.

The difference between success and utter crusty messy crumbly failure was in the application. When I rubbed the paraffin on the denim and stropped, even without any paste it's a rapid mess. It drags into the razor spine and edge and becomes rapidly pointless. So I then started with a new denim strip and re-applied the paraffin followed by melting it into the denim with a blow dryer. 3 total applications and the denim was saturated. This way it was more inside the strop rather then on the surface. But knowing when to stop was critical. At the right point the denim can be almost saturated internally, with almost no wax above the denim fiber to speak of. It was also critical to let the paraffin set up well before stropping, otherwise it still wants to get on the razor. But once it set up, I was able to strop with accelerated results, and it did not seem to put anything on the razor. Any paste that I tried on top of the paraffin took less to be effective, so in this particular setup it seemed to enhance the compounds.

The jury is still out. My lack of experience makes it difficult to be sure of what I think I saw, but it was interesting for sure. I picked out my 2 favorite paraffin setups and they are now hanging in the bathroom for rotational use. We'll see.