Thread: 2 sided leather strop,one rough,one smooth(pride cutlery :-()

Hey guys I'm new to the community and I guess I should have posted in the welcome area first but that's my next step. I am new to the straight razor and am trying as hard as I can to get this down. I love its becoming a passion more than a hobby lol. I recently made the mistake of purchasing a straight razor and and strop off eBay from pride cutlery and needless to say the razor is a oversized 2 lb letter opener not even worth honing, but the strop I think might be OK but it has 2 leather sides. Which I am unfamiliar with, the dark side is a more coarse/ hairy/ rough leather and the tan side is like a smoother leather but not smooth like a belt or a pair of boots its like cow hide or softish I can't explain it. I have another strop that's a vintage strop that has shiny leather on one side and white cloth like material on the back which I'm guessing is canvas.
Please any help would be great I have searched the net vigourisly and keep coming up empty handed.

Welcome,,,that looks like a nice strop. Go to our "Library" section above & work your way to the strop area where there are videos & information to guide you, come back if you have more questions.

Hard to tell from photos, but the vintage one, if it is in good order, I would wait till you have perfected stropping, the new one could be a good one to learn on, it won't matter if you carve it up with your razor so much, which seems to happen a lot as you learn the technique.

The rougher side is probably used like scrub leather, the smoother side for final stropping.

Here I hope these pics are a little clearer.

Here is a picture of the vintage one I have cut some chunks out of it lol

I have several of these I picked up on the cheep... These are the best strop's I have

Which one the first pic I posted

the second one