Thread: Homemade Hanging Denim strop

In my continuing garage-tech/low-tech adventure in wet-shaving, I decided to make a stand alone denim strop. I have read some posts about it and here is my take on it.

Here is the breakdown:

Old jeans from my youngest daughter.
Eyelet tool $1.67
Eyelets 1/4" $2.67
Leather trim leftover ~$5.00
Big metal clip $0.97
Sheet of 200 grit sand paper ~?

The pants were cut into usable pieces. The pieces on the left were used for this project. The pieces on the right were used for Dubl Duck strop. More on that in another post.


I stitched the 2 pieces of large denim together (to prevent sliding). After the initial stitching, the denim was stitched into a sleeve and the reversed. I then made a leather end "cap" to finish one side of the strop. The challenge with the end cap was stitching it to the denim. After some Google-ing I got the answer. I used an awl-type punch (from my wife's scrapbooking tools) and punched small holes into the denim that allowed for easier sewing.



After hand sewing the end cap I added an eyelet for the handle.



The handle I chose for this strop was a twisted solomon lanyard. It was easy to make with some shoelaces I had in the closet.


To finish the top side of the strop, I looped the denim on itself so it would provide a "stop" on the metal clip I was going to use for my mounting hardware. I added some sandpaper to the clip to add more "adhesion" so the strop would not slip from the clip.




And the finished strop:


After some initial stropping on the denim and then leather and a shave, I am quite happy with the outcome. I plan on loading this strop with some diamond spray (0.125micron) and seeing how that affects my stropping.

m-

Bless you Mario. You saved me hours of frustration. I applaud your solution to quick and cheap. I will be making one for myself after I delve into my fabric full closet. I am a fabric artist and worked for fabric stores at one time and have a closet full of ends and great sales buys along with the employee discount I would get. Your solution is both simple and elegant at the same time

I bought some of those clips with a similar intention, I liked the fact that you could get 3" ones. I was trying to work out how to stop the fabric slipping, I think your soloution is nice.

This inspired me to make a denim strop as well. I looped the end over a wire type hanger to secure it and a piece of dowel with a loop of some climbing type rope for a handle Worked out pretty well.

Originally Posted by pstrjp

This inspired me to make a denim strop as well. I looped the end over a wire type hanger to secure it and a piece of dowel with a loop of some climbing type rope for a handle Worked out pretty well.

Yeah, it doesnt need to be difficult to work

I really like the creativity of the strop hanger!

Nice work!!

Denim makes an excellent stropping material, and I often do a few laps on the thigh of my jeans when coming off the stones..

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?