I recently asked this question of the knife community. The consensus seemed to be that leather strops are commonly misused (too much pressure), and that there seems to be as many different "best burr removal/finishing" techniques and materials as there were people that replied to my post. In other words leather didn't seem to be the be all end all I had originally assumed.

So, I'm curious what the straight razor community thinks?

Are leather strops a sham?

What do you find works best for you?