hi newbi strop question

[cannon123]

Hi so are leather strops suposta be buttery smooth and lokk like shiny paper or like regular tanned leather. Im trying to make a leather strop and the smoothest leather i can get my hands on is i think its like 1/8th or 1/16th of an inch thick goat skin or leather idk but its orange i just dont know if i have to sand it or leave as is like smooth leather that you can see the grain in or if not how do i sand it if it needs to b buttery smooth with no texture idk plz some one help me out

[RezDog]

you can go to tandy leather and pick up a 3" x 60" piece of vegetable tanned latino for very little money. Unless you are just experimenting and playing around. I think the trick is to start out with a good piece of leather. All the guys that have made them all use veg tanned.

[cannon123]

Any spesific leather cheap? I want a good leather and i dont have a tandy leather ilive in oshawa ontario.

[RezDog]

Tandy does do mail order and web sales too. Having spent most of my life on a remote set of islands it has been a lot of catalogue and web shopping. Compared to before web shopping is awesome.

[cannon123]

I'm basicaly just wondering if the regular tan leather natural and textured works or does it have to be smooth as paper?

[RezDog]

I have several strops and I wouldn't describe any of them as smooth as paper. The smoothest one I have is a horsehide strop, and even it has texture. Funny you should say paper because you can use newspaper to strop on too. Regular leather texture is what most of mine are.