Thread: Making my own strop, need advice.

The quality of the leather is the most important for me. Thus, I wouldn't buy online. For my homemade strops I found leather shops and I went there myself to see and touch the leather. And it was not easy to find pieces that match the requirements. For me, a good strop must be smooth but strong and with ho imperfections.

I believe that you must see some quality strops before deciding to make your own because you must have an idea of what kind of leather you are looking for.

Yea, Tandy leather will have all you need, and you can buy smaller pieces of leather, most importantly you can pick them yourself.

All you need is a smooth piece about 1/8 in thick. You can also buy canvas or nylon strapping, from a fabric store.
Keep in mind you will probably spend more money, than buying a good entry level strop. SRD has a nice one for about $50.

Do make the leather or cloth replaceable, with Chicago screws.

If you can go to the leather store and choose a good piece , fine grain clean of scares and when you run a hand on it ,as you bent it , make sure there arent bumps in the leather . feel the leather , you will know when you find a good piece .
Another thing ,when you bent it, it not has to get cracs on the front side that disapeare ,when returned straight .
When you do your strop does not bent it very much , make it step buy step not to make cracs . You will understand after truyng few pieces , that the quality and the broke inn are the 2 essential things for a good homemade strop .
Get some mineral oil , it looks milky white .

Thank you all for replying. I'm going to nyc for the weekend and will definitely stop by a couple stores.

My personal suggestion is to get one very smooth piece of 8/9 vegetable tanned bovine leather, and one smooth piece of horse butt strip of the same weight if you can find it. If the bovine leather is smooth, it's usable right away. The butt strip is very stiff and possibly rough at first, but it will break in over time and become very slick. In my opinion, with use, they flip flop, and after about a thousand or so strokes, the horse butt makes a much keener razor.

I'd source the linen by watching for an old strop that has a new or nearly unused silk finish or other labeled linen, and where the strop itself isn't that great so that you get a deal on it.

The linen will probably cost a few bucks to get, but a vintage treated true linen is in a completely different league vs. most of the untreated things put on new strops.