Thread: My first homemade strop

Don't know if I posted this in the correct forum

I made this strop today out of the best northern Swedish bull leather. It's my first work and it works absolutely flawlessly.

Please tell me what you think. The other side is pretty rough works perfect as a linen substitute.

It's 8cm wide

Can't argue with success!


Mike

Nice bit of work there. Looks very professional.

Thanks guys I'm thinking about buying some linen to put on the backside will that be necessary or is the rough leather enough?

Depending on the leather it may be too rough for a razor edge.

A Nylon or Poly Strapping or Cotton or Poly canvas may be better using a separate D ring. A honed razor edge is very fragile.

Here is how I have done it, using an iron on fabric fusing (heat activated glue) it is very strong. This is Polyester Canvas, Sailcloth, excellent material for stropping and paste.

Nice work. Strop making can be addictive.

Nice job. Looks great.

Is there a "break in' with bull leather?

I have no idea only stropped once the surface feels exactly like my Latigo strop by Neil Miller

Congrats on the success with your first home made strop.
One very effective idea I have borrowed from some members here is to strop on newspaper wrapped around a piece of wood.
For this I used about 3 layers of newspaper wrapped tightly around a piece of 12x2.5x 1 inch pine

After stropping on my veg tanned leather strop I go to the newspaper for about 100 laps.
Shaves have been smoother and edges seem that little bit sharper.
It works for me and is cheap to make