Thread: Vintage "Russia Shell" strop [+hardware questions]

Originally Posted by benhunt

Very interesting. Thanks for the additional info & photos. The one I've got seems like a pretty good strop once I'd restored it a bit. Feels a bit different than any of my cow-hide strops.

Here is a post by the late Neil Miller, who probably knew more about strops/leather than anyone I've ever talked with ;

http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...ml#post1508775

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

It is leather. It is the american version of russian leather - original russian leather had birch tree oil in it (to deter insect attack) and this smell was incorporated into the russia leather made in the US. It was nearly always a red colour - so the american tanneries died it red. The original had the flesh side scraped off by means of a draw-wire used in alternating diagonals, giving rise to the 'diamond' shape. The american stuff was rolled, one of the rollers being cross-hatched, although earlier examples were rolled on a grooved roller, tilting the strop one way (say 45 degrees) for the first pass and then the other way, still 45 degrees for the second pass, again giving a 'diamond' effect.

This both compressed the leather and gave a patterned side for abrasive paste to be added to. Compressing leather makes it very hard - like old style boot sole leather, so these strops were very slick (light on the draw) and neded an extended 'breaking-in' time.

As a point of interest, dyeing was undertaken after tanning was finished, and the hide laid out stretched on a frame before tooling commenced. In antiquity the hide was wetted with alum water and spread over a barrel, latterly a frame was used, but the hide still had to be softened in order to make it pliable enough to fit on another frame (the frame would have broken as it was made of wood) and once re-stretched it was tooled on the skin side (or grain side - the other side or innermost side - is the flesh side).

So, a typical russian-style strop has the stropping surface on the flesh side (the rolling or calendering buffs it to a shine) and the side we would normally strop on has the pattern on it.

Regards,
Neil