Thread: Homemade horsehide

Well , as a fan of homemade strops , i was making mysel and experimenting with diferent types of leathers .
I began with a split horsehide nubbuc leaher . My first strop gives extraordinary sharp , but not so smooth edges to my razors .
Second material i try was a black latigo . I supose that i was lucky to get a quality piece of leather , as im still in love with it . Work fast , leaves sharp and very smooth edge . I play for many hours to rubb this latigo strop , with a bottle .
Third material i use was a natural taned , first quality cowhide . Its a stiffer leather than the latigo and after light sanding and a lot of rubbing , it gives very good results . Pretty close to the latigo , but diferent .
I feel that the leading factor in this leather , was the broke in , or the rubbing of the strop . I can accomodate the effect on the edge ,by apllying diferent kind of oils or just buffing the leather surface .
I now have 3 strops , with diferent effect .
Latelly i bought a Pelican Nishiri strop and a old 1.5 inch horsehide rusian strop .
Pelican strop , as all Kanoyama strops look sanded and coated with diferent oils and waxes . I like the edge it gives , quite a refined edge , same as my well broke latigo strop . Only diference is that Pelican works much slower .
First i didnt like the draw from the horsehide strops. I began to palm rubb them every day and after a whille i accomodate them as i whant to and they really began to work and give me , the edge i whant .
I am a member of a knife forum , here in Bulgaria , so i know a lot of custom knife makers .
On the last forum meeting , after a 2 bottles of home made , 50 degrees , 12 year old / wood barels fermented / homemade alcohol , i recieve a beautyfull 3 x 25 inch piece of horsehide and a big piece of silversteel for straight razors.
The horsehide isnt a horse shell or butt , but is pretty fine , tight grain , leather .
It is 4.5 mm thick , compared tomy 3 mm ,thick cowhide strops is monster .
I want to make a strop , out of it , so any advise or recomendation , are more than wellcome . I already make it damp , and putt it between 2 glass plates to straighten it good .
I know there is many knowledgeable guys here , so please point me in some direction .
I was thinking of sanding both face and flesh side , to fine structure and rubb some mineral oil ,into the hide .
Any sugestions , Gentelmans .

Your horse hide is probably front quarter, the opposite end of the horse from the shell end! It provides longer, thicker strips of skin-on leather, but often has range marks, fat wrinkles, bug bites and healed wound marks on it, so it is often mechanically milled to remove them leaving a very fine suede like surface. Often tanned with the cordovan method, it is a fraction of the cost of true shell cordovan, but a fine stropping leather nevertheless.

Hopefully the hide was not alum tanned. Alum tanning, often used for lighter colour hides that will not get wet, is a kind of half-way house method of tanning as it is reversible. If it gets really wet it reverts back to skin and rots.

Yours is probably vegetable-tanned (aka bark-tanned) leather. Getting bark-tanned leather wet is OK if done in the old barber style with a tallow rich soap worked into it before it is dry. This method ensures that the oils/fats in the soap get into the leather.

Soaking the leather and drying may allow straightening the leather, but leather that is subjected to just water ususlly gets harder.

The old way of breaking in hard leather strops, such as the original russian leather strops (USA style, not true Russian style leather) was to work it over a round surface like a table or chair leg, see-sawing back and forth until it became manageable. Takes an awful long time, though.

As for sanding, unless the skin side has many imperfections, wrinkles, marks, etc, I would leave it as-is. You can always sand the rear (flesh) side and have the best of both worlds, providing the flesh side is compact in the fibres and not loose. If loose it should be 'split' or 'skived off' until fimer fibres are revealed.

Leather depends on a small amount of moisture to be present in the fibres - it keeps them long and allows to to slide over each other, making the leather more supple. In short, let it dry (for decades) and shrinks, cracks up and stiffens and is no longer usable. So something is needed to slow down the moisture loss, eg oils, waxes, etc.

This is usually done as part of the tanning process with oil and grease. In hot stuffing the leather gets a higher dosing and feels quite soft and plush. The grease and oils are emulsifiable, though. They include cod oil, castor oil, tallow, neatsfoot, petroleum by products, glycerine, synthetic oils and greases. Most are used in drums during fat liquoring and hot stuffing, but can be applied by hand in the form of a dubbin or paste, eg tallow and cod oil.

That is all a bit too involved for us, and we can easily ruin a good bit of leather. It is probably best to lather the damp leather with a tallow rich soft soap (if you can get it), use saddle soap, or add some glycerine to the water, then nearly dry it hanging and weighted, then finish by weighting down to flatten it.

Regards,
Neil

Neil you impreses me , with your knowledge . Thank you