Thread: Who are some quality strop makers?

Who are some quality strop makers out there these days that you would recommend?


RIP Neil

I have 2 Tony Miller strops, the Plain Vanilla and the "practice" strop. I like em. Great quality!
I never got a strop from Neil. We were working out a few details, but it never happened.

You cant go wrong with Kanayama, beautiful strops with a glass like draw.
Westholme strops by Alastair Summers are also amazing. Alastair uses Horween shell, latigo and I think chromexel. Alastair is also a gentleman to deal with.
Scrupleworks strops by Tolrolf are another safe bet that uses Horween horsehide and swedish bridal cowhide.

With the passing of Neil, the choices are fewer, but there are excellent strops for decent prices. Bang for the buck, its hard to beat the SRDs. Tony Miller's, I've not used, but you don't get that reputation by doing mediocre stuff. My dailies are works of art from the honorable HidestoArt, with flax-based linen I was lucky to get from Neil. Kanayama, I've handled, but not used. With the fancy strops - its more a pride of ownership thing. A fine job is done by alot of guys w/ the humble Illinois brand & a jillion no name bits of hide.

Also, don't forget some of the best strops ever made are the vintage ones. if you are patient and check often some real quality pieces in great shape do come up on the usual sites.

I looked into Kanayama strops, but they don't appear to be available. The website is still up, but no stock, or at least there wasn't when I last checked and I seem to recall reading that they were no longer being made.

I've got two from Tony Miller, from before he stopped shipping outside the US, Both are nice strops.

My daily drivers today are an Illinois 827 that I had to do a lot of *fixing* to, after buying it. It took sweat, pumice stone and a sharp knife for scraping to turn it from a sows ear to a silk purse. I'm very happy with it now and it's still very resistant to nicking, should you do a bad flip of the razor during stropping.

My other strop is a vintage Mitchel Mogal Horse Hide strop. It was in sad shape when I got it off Ebay. I cleaned up the surface with some mechanics waterless handcleaner... the kind that has lanolin in it... Can't remember the exact brand but it was possibly Goop. Note, it's not the typical citrus based cleaner you get today, but rather the old style that used minerals spirits for disolving oil/grease. It really cleaned up the leather and conditioned it too. I just wiped it off with a paper towel after rubbing with my fingers. I let it hang for a while.... OK, 5 years, seeing I started feeling poorly shortly afterwards and I was dissapointed to find the surface quite cracked and crazed. When I started back up a couple of months ago, I gave it a tiny bit of Fromm strop conditioner and good hand rubbing. It's typical slick horse shell and seems to bring my razors up a treat, even with the cracks and crazing.

My next strop will be an SRD strop... I like the price and the fact that I can simply order a replacment strip of leather, should I nick it badly or even just want to try a different leather. I'll probably get the IV, but the Roo strop is tempting too....

Regards

Kaptain "So many strops, so little time" Zero

I've had luck finding kanyama strops through japanese natural stones via maksim and from aframestokyo via tekeshi san. I think I purchased the last kanyama 90000 ever made, but I still see others all the time. Also, it may have sold by now, but there was a "raven" edition pegasus strop on ebay, reasonably priced if I recall correctly. Good luck.

Agree with all of the above. I have picked up a few vintage strops from the Bay--one of which was a NOS salesman's set of three--pigskin, seal, and shell horsehide.

Just for the record, I think the SRD strops are the current best Bang for you Buck, with the Kanayama #3 a close second (because...a little more money).

But with that said have some strop porn featuring my all time favorite, an extra long Neil Miller custom:

+1 Scrupleworks strops by Tolrolf

I really do like my 3" Vegi tanned Horse & the 2" Oil tanned horse beginner I got to try the leather