Thread: Draw on a strop notting to do with performance?

Actually, cordovan leather gets its name from Cordoba, a
Spanish city.

True, it originated in North Africa, but the leather produced there differs in two fundamental respects:

1, The Moors tanned goatskin, and
2, The Moors used alum as the tanning agent.

The process as practiced in Cordoba is associated with equine leather, not goats, and the fundamental tanning process is of the traditional veg-tan type. Alum tanning is not considered as real tanning - if the leather is soaked the alum leaches out, the leather reverts back to its pre-tanning stage and begins to decompose.

Almost any leather can be tanned using the cordovan process - that is all it is, a process. That is why we use the double name 'shell cordovan' to specify that is equine shell tanned using the cordovan process. The main use of this was to produce shell leather for shoe making, hence the old word 'cordwainer' meaning a shoe maker.

Shell, even from old horses, is usually thin - around 2mm thick. If you go to the cheaper and longer leather that surrounds the shells (some call it 'north of cordovan') then the leather is significantly thicker. Not that shell is 'leather' in the strict sense of the word, being a subcutaneous membrane.

Part of the process of tanning is fixing the shells to plates of glass and then hand finishing them to a very smooth, lustrous finish. This is the modern meaning of shell cordovan, anything finished with other than this finish may be equine, may have been tanned using the cordovan process, but it is not shell cordovan.

As previously stated, it is very slick and gives a very fine edge. Most leathers suitable for stropping purposes do. But not every leather will - too much draw equates to slow stropping due to the resistance and can be detrimental to the edge.

As far as 'abrasive' quality is concerned, we see actual grit equivalents quoted by some newcomers who would know better if they spent some time researching here. That is not the newcomers fault, though. I can source most of this to one particular strop maker who really should know better. Putting it in print is just asking for people to repeat it. And we all know the consequence of repeating nonsensical info enough times - sooner or later people will come to believe it.

Regards,
Neil