Thread: Shell Strops-Where Have You Been All These Years?!

Ha ha no smoke, Andrew! From what I've seen long term exposure to cigarette smoke can do to certain guitar finishes from guys who play in bands, I'll be happy to do without that magic! I'm so glad the era of indoor smoking being acceptable is over-yech!

Well, I just won another one with my one bid being the starting bid-I couldn't believe nobody else jumped in (though I'm glad!). I've got another 7 or 8 on my watch list for the next few days. I may need an intervention before this is all over...

Nah, you just fell into another AD

Jimmy has a good collection of shell strops if I remember correct. I have a C-mon and a Koken. The Koken is special.

Nothing quite like the sensation.
I have a few well-used ones from an old Japanese barber. Hand-rubbed for a career, I reckon. A 'Tokyo' and a 'Russian'. Obviously from Kanayama back in the day.

Another is a vintage Hess strop.

A Wagner Razor strop Co out of Portland, Ore!

Butter.

That brown shell from Neil Miller. THAT is nice shell.

I don't know about being any more or less effective than others, but it is some nice stropping!

The other thing that is often overlooked is the development of your stropping skill. It can take years to develop, to the point that a “Good, Quality” strop will really make a difference. As they say, When the student is ready…

It may sound over the top, but as you pay more attention to stropping, you will feel the difference in strop performance, to the point where you can develop a strop progression. I recall Mike, Wolfpack34 mentioning this years ago, he was/is right.

I stropped for almost 10 years on an Illinois strop, before I began to experiment with vintage quality and new leather. By that time, I was ready and could fully appreciate the difference.

And as Razor AD’s go, for a few hundred dollars you can put together a very nice working collection. I have found a number of Pristine or NOS strops, they are out there.

Thanks, Marty-I'm sort of already tinkering around with a strop progression of sorts.

And that DublDuck I mentioned earlier in this thread: the seller messaged me that his high bidder didn't complete the purchase, so he offered it to me again just now on a BIN as #2, so of course I pulled the trigger. Wife is going to kill me! I've got to get back to work before we go bankrupt...

I have had a strop progression off the hones for a while now.

Neil Miller provided such a plethora of panels for the Lipshaw strop, I sort of developed it in self-defense!

Toss that in after a little CroOx strop, a little FeOx strop, some good old lead strop....

It really works well!