Thread: What to get to have a complete strop system?

A quality strop is paramount in maintaining the edge of a straight, having a flax linen, cotton or suede second or third piece are optional but are a nice luxury if you can afford them. As far as what's best that would be open for a long discussion and I am sure that horse has been beat but getting a quality strop from folks like Tony Miller, Alastair at Westholme, Torolf at Scrupleworks and then some others like Bison branded, SRD, Kanayama and the list goes on and on it just depends on your budget

I have tried and or owned lots of strops and they all perform the same function and that is maintain the edge and as long as you do your part and strop correctly you can carry the edge for a very long time, I would how ever advise that if you don't have much stropping experience that you not use any paste or sprays on your strop as you can cause more harm than good plus honestly you don't want to apply that to a $300 strop you can paste as inexpensive one.

You don't need to start with an expensive Shell strop but if that's what you want then go for it but be mindful that a lot of us have nicked and or cut a strop or two, that's how I got my beater... anyway nice piece oh HH or similar is all you need and then you need to decide if you want a second piece like cotton, flax linen, poly webbing ( I hate that stuff ) any way that to can be debatable as their are going to be those that swear that poly webbing is the best and those like me that love flax so in the end get a quality strop and learn to strop the right way and as you venture down the road you can try other materials or just own one as one is all you really need if it's taken care of, I have just one with 9-10 back ups