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Hello everyone!
I have been a hobbiest leatherworker for a few years now and I'd like to show you my Strops!
Here are a few shots, the first is the 1.25-1.5inch wide model and makes a good practice or first strop.
Attachment 272389
These are the top notch model using premium grade Veg Tan leather, 2inch or 3 inches wide and ranging in length.
Attachment 272388
Ahhh! Feeling, not selling!
Perhaps a fabric component?:D
Nice looking leather work swifty.
The reddish ones in particular look quite nice.
Mods made and thread is open again.
Well-Done! :cool:
Ill be looking to add a fabric component as soon as I can find a decent source of linen webbing! I have some felt I was thinking of using but I've heard its so/so for dia-spray
and thanks Mike! those ones are my favourite too, reminds me of the classic red Latigo leather
and to the mods thanks for the prompt and kind guidance!
Hemp webbing is also an option for a second component. I have a couple of strops with a very nice herring bone weaved hemp second. Leather work is one of those things that I have done very little of. There is some nice leather work being shown in the thread "we have skills too"
oh good call! ill look into hemp as well.
is that so! Ill check it out for sure
Do you or anyone you know, make shell cordovan strops at home for people like us, who can't afford a $400. shell strop? Let us know. Thanks.
Shell is very hard to come by for a reasonable price. The domestic option is Horween shell, and the shells themselves are not oriented to get much strop material out of them. Two max out of a large shell that's selected to be long and narrow rather than more traditional shape. I would imagine that just the leather itself will be hard to get below $100 after you sell off the outside parts of the shell and make two strops, and then on top of that, it's really not very durable and not that good for strops that are going to be used with anything but the most gentle polished rounded spine razors.
No clue on the international shell, but you'd have to do a lot of work.
If you want very good but not too expensive, you need strops that are made out of horse butt strips and then broken in.
I saw a picture of the cuts of leather on a horse and the rump strips are the shell strips. Thanks for the advice.
The shell is under the skin instead of on the surface. my understanding is that it's the membrane that the horse uses to twitch their rear when they're trying to get flies off.
I could be wrong, though.
I looked up the shells from the italian maker of shell cordovan and they are 165 euros, so if they are ultimately any cheaper than getting horween shells (you used to be able to get horween shells through their "tannery row" retail front end, maybe you can't anymore, I don't know).
Maybe some of the other tanneries are cheaper, but the italian tannery leather also does not resemble the shell that's on old strops. The japanese strops are also different, less of a glaze on the leather and more of what looks like burnishing. Less hard/stiff strops, too, than the horween type.
Biggest waste of money I've ever made in anything strop related was buying a no. 2 shell from horween and making a strop out of it, and then learning that it can't handle any spinework on a razor - not even something relatively plain like a dovo bismark. Net cost after selling off the outside parts of the shell was still about $140 to make a strop, and it's still in my closet almost unused.
Ok, The shell on old strops shouldn't resemble the new. Is stiff/hard undesirable? Don't understand. What was wrong with a "No.2" strop? The No. 1 is better? Can't handle spine work? What does that mean/matter? I think I will go ahead and drop some coin on a new shell cordovan from the guy on feebay. His are around $240. or so. I have an old one from Peter J. Michels, which is shell. I think, sometimes, that too much thought goes into buying a strop. I think that any shell or latigo is good enough to finish a straight before shaving. I had an Illinois strop that was new, that worked well. It was not pricey. It may have been made out of bridle leather or . . . ? Any how, I'll just keep watching this thread. I learn something new every day.
WILDMAN-If you want a horse shell strop on a budget, go vintage. You can get some outstanding, near mint ones from Ebay, often for around $50. Jsut make sure they are reasonably straight with no wrinkles. I've got a rack full of them, and would put them up against anybody's new $300 cordovan shell strop (which I admit I would also like to have, but can't really justify to the wife). Lots of us on here use and love our old Kokens, Wagners, DublDucks, Red Imps, all the different Certifyd brands, etc.
As to your question about stiffness/hardness on a strop, I think the Horween shell another poster tried is probably just cut and tanned too thin. I've got a couple of quite thin vintage ones, but most of mine are quite thick and substantial, but slick like a bowling ball (especially my Wagner!).
The new shell is intended for shoes, watchbands, wallets, etc. It's thin and stiff, but with a top treatment that isn't very durable, and when it comes off, the shell below isn't nearly as slick, and the surface becomes less than uniform. I personally wouldn't want a strop made of it, even though I have one.
Get a japanese made strop instead if you're going to buy something in that price range. The leather that they use is far better suited to the long run vs that which is produced by between.
In terms of the number, that's the sizing convention that between used. A no 2 shell is one that's not as large as the largest size, it's a size or two smaller. The bigger the shell, the higher the cost. A no 2 shell was the smallest size that I could get close to two feet out of, and that was one of the long narrow ones as far as no 2 shell go. It was 225 with shipping, and someone on here bought the excess for watchbands.
I'm not a fan of any of the cow leathers for razor strops. Broken in horse butt strip is far better. Almost no vintage strops used cow leather until the supply of horse leather dwindled with the phase out of horses used in agriculture. It's just not nearly as good on razors as horse leathers.
Between = horween
Puzzled by the comment the shell can't take spinework.
I have a Raven Strop which is Black Horween Cordovan which is bonded to saddle leather and I have had no issues with the shell at all.
As a matter of fact talk to someone who has a pair of Cordovan Shoes and they will tell you they are some of the longest lasting shoes you can buy. I know cause I have a pair I bought 30 years ago and they laugh at scuffs and things that would destroy regular leather. My shoes look better now than when I first got them.
My horween shell strop. About 25 razors stropped on it:
Attachment 274132
See all of the bumps? They're treatment removed by a dovo Bismarck.
Jared at tss showed a much more drastically worn strop years ago and made the comment that once the surface comes off, they're not the same. I'd agree. Even with just those spots removed, the feel is significantly affected for the negative.
Great for shoes, wallets and watch bands, subpar for strops, esp for the price. At the same time, I made a butt strip strop for about $10, and it has been far superior with probably close to 100x as many razors.
Better pictureAttachment 274133
Super interesting thread this has turned into!
With almost all of the above propositions the hardest bit is getting the martial, the actual leatherwork to run it into a strop after that is quite easy!
that said provided material id be happy to give back a functional strop
You have to convince me that wearing a pair of shoes and jamming them into concrete curbs and scuffing them all day long against all kinds of media with force is way gentler than minimal pressure with a worked back spine while honing. I know my cordovan strop don't look like that no matter the spines I use.
Though some time ago we had a strop discussion about using worked back spines and some members said they can mar many types of strops and the discussion centered on some very light sanding of the spine which eliminated that problem. This wasn't all such spines but some with very sharp patterns. I think it had to do with the Kanayama strops. But even then it wasn't the kind of damage you have there.
I think if Jimmy happens by he might remember the discussion.
I'd guess this was probably 2012? Maybe before that? The dovo bismarcks had crappy spine work that was basically just a slit/groove perpendicular to the length of the spine. I may have gotten a little bit of the damage with a dennert razor with spinework, also, but that spinework isn't particularly harsh and it looks like it was from a die forge.
Jared's strop on that video looks like this one, except that it's the entire area and it only doesn't look as bad because the strop is already black. If his strop was made of the same cordovan as mine, it would be dark red with huge light colored blotches. Until the surface started coming off, it felt great and slick.
The horse butt that I made for a tiny fraction of the cost has had no issue with any razors. Instead of becoming less burnished as time goes on, it's gone the other way.
I have allen edmonds shoes, pretty much the only thing I wear. When I scuff them against a curb, the leather gets marked up pretty badly. Unlike strops, I can use polish to hide the scuff. Maybe that's what I should do with this one, actually? Maybe it would slick those spots. If this strop cost $140 net to make, it still owes me about $139 worth of use. Anyway, scuffs on shoes, no problem. If you slice leather on a shoe, entirely different - and this stuff does slice very easily (I remember it cutting VERY easily with a japanese marking knife).
The Black Cordovan from Imperial Shave I don't think they have sold for quite some time. I know when I ordered mine I waited around 7 months until they found the hide. It is difficult to source especially in that size.
Dave, as you've seen from that TSS video, the softer more supple leathers don't resist scuffing as well as the Latigo's and other bovine leathers. The popular view is that all strops do the same thing, so whether you own a Horween strop or dare I say it, a Kkkkkkanayama, they will all get your razors in shape for the bathroom. In all seriousness though, thebigspendur has a vast amount of experience and his views are always worthy of note. I wonder if the leather used by Westholme have had any issues with scuffing, I've not heard bad things about them, but I don't have direct experience with them.
I think people are confused as to what part of the horse the shell is made from. I got onto a website (it may have been Horween's) and it showed the areas of the horse the different leathers came from and the shell comes from the butt of the horse. No mention which layer of skin it comes from. Who knows.
I have a fancy spine coming I the mail today(I thought it was going to be here yesterday). I have an older Peter J. Michels shell strop. I accidentally put some streaks on it from a razor that had a burr or something and it marred the surface a little. It should still be ok to use, right? About that fancy spine razor, does it matter what leather your strop is made out of to use for a worked spine?
What is the word on Latigo cordovan? Is it considered the 2nd best type of leather for strops? For those of you who are going to say something, I saw it listed as Latigo Cordovan. I guess cordovan is referring to the type of brown called cordovan? I know that was a color option on '63 Impalas!
This thing is constantly getting confused and folks keep further confusing it.
The term cordovan refers to a color and nothing more. If you are talking the high end "leather" it's "Horse Shell Cordovan" which to my knowledge is only made by 2 outfits in this country. Horween is the 600lb Gorilla and there is or was a smaller outfit somewhere here that made it too. This is different from regular Horsehide leather strops. Of course there are a very few international outfits making it and their process is probably yielding a different looking product.
The horween stuff is very distinctive by their finish a shiny almost patent leather finish and all their leather is stamped on the back. I have Horween Watch straps and even they are stamped individually.
Actually most of what Horween produces is regular leather.
Then of course there is the never ending discussion of what the kanayama Strops are made of. I've seen sites and folks refer to them as Horse, Horse Shell, Cow, you name it and I still don't think we know for sure.
You can check out their site but a excerpt from a discussion on their site about Horse Shell:
How are the grades of shell cordovan rated? Aren’t there different grades based on size quality?
Shell cordovan is graded 1, X, 2, 3, 4, 5, or chip. The sizes are all equal quality but are different sizes.
What industry uses the most shell cordovan?
Footwear by a great majority.
Is there any tanning process more arduous than tanning shell cordovan?
No. This is as good as it gets.
Does the supply of shell cordovan vary much? Is it ever in short supply?
Shell cordovan is always in short supply. This is due to the limited amount of suitable horsehides available, and also the long tanning process. It varies quite a bit as well. Currently we are only able to produce about half as much as we were producing 2 years ago.
How do I justify the expense of $500+ shoes, $200+ wallets, $100+ watch straps, etc? Will these products last longer then less expensive calfskin products.
A product made of shell cordovan will last multiple lifetimes. Because of the unique, non-creasing characteristics of shell cordovan, footwear can last a very long time by replacing the soles as needed – bottoms can be replaced many times, depending on the construction of the shoe. The best part of using shell cordovan in a wallet or watch strap is the natural rubbing a wear placed on the shell which starts developing an amazing patina that develops with each use. It is similar to having a fine wine that you can drink every day and keeps getting better.
Is there any other tannery that produces shell cordovan leather?
There are a few tanneries in the world that tan horsehides for their shells. None of the tanneries have been doing it as long as Horween. Our processes are very traditional and our experience gives us an edge. We like to think that the market prefers our product, and we’re very proud of the time and care we put into our shell cordovan.
Shell (but without a fragile surface treatment) is the best leather for strops. The stuff labeled "french shell" on japanese certifyd strops is fantastic.
Horse butt strip is second best for strops, but best in durability. It is harder to get in perfectly clear run, hard and needs hand conditioning to make a nice strop (though I'm sure you could devise a machine). It can be abrasive at first until it settles in. The longer you use it, the better it gets. The horween is opposite - it is fantastic the first time you use it, but the surface treatment doesn't last forever and it is certainly the best feel (the leather under it isn't as slick and hard).
Kanayama and other french shell leathers that come from japan can be a bit soft at first, but they burnish. They're also less expensive than Horween if you just get a decent thinner lower-cost strop. I didn't find the really thick higher-dollar Kanayamas to be any better than the thinner vintage certifyd strops (from japan), actually liked the latter better.
Latigo is a cow leather. It's durable, but it doesn't finish a razor as well as cordovan or broken in horse butt. The only thing I've never used is a russia finished cow leather, but I'd be willing to bet those were second-rate strops in the days when shell strops were the norm (a look at an old barber catalog would line that out pretty quickly).
Before the government got out of control with regulations, all of these were available in volume in the states and less-finished than horween shell was the norm for the high dollar strops. We are unlikely to have hobbyist strop makers or semi professional strop makers improving on something that was widely done commercially and consumed mostly by professionals. If it would've been easy to just make something better, that would've been done back then.
A good linen and shell leather will stretch out a razor for several hundred shaves with no need for abrasives or crox or anything like that and still pass the hanging hair test when you go to refresh it on the hones. The same type will also step up the comfortable natural stones (coticules and thuris) that were commonly used by barbers.
Since "what's cordovan or shell" keeps coming up, here's the definition from wiki (it's horse parts only, which is problematic in the states because we have government that's been bent by a bunch of people to make it legally difficult to process horses - so they get sent to canada - at least that was the case, I understand that it's been at least technically legal in the US at some points between then and now, but there's a bunch of controversy. Apparently it feels different to the horse if they're rendered in Canada or France - at any rate, the definition:
Shell cordovan (or cordovan) is a type of leather commonly used in high-end shoemaking. Cordovan is an equine leather made from the fibrous flat muscle (or shell) beneath the hide on the rump of the horse.
Oops, TBS beat me to it.
Anyone who has tried the japanese european shell vs. our horween is probably already aware of how different the surface is on the two.
I've got an old certifyd 2000 strop that has ultra thin shell and had a kanayama 80k (and sold it for fear of nicking it when it really didn't do a better job than my horse butt and needed to be used a bit).
The horween is very hard and slick feeling until the surface gets breached. The japanese shell is more supple but very smooth. The result at the edge of thin vs. thin feels about the same to me, but the japanese leather shouldn't change much as it gets burnished whereas the horween does. If you're likely to never use a strop more than a couple of hundred times, maybe it doesn't matter much, but my opinion is still the same - your dollar goes further if there is less difference between the very surface and what's right behind it, and the japanese strops are much more uniform.
I think the inexpensive certifyd 2k that i have has shell that's so thin that it's offputting at first, but it actually does a better job new strop vs. new strop than the kayanama 80K did, and it's older and was NOS and has a linen that you can actually use vs the new harsh brown linens that need some care before they can be used willy nilly on a razor.
if you ever get the chance to use an old strop that's still supple, the linens on them are not matched by much that's sold these days. They are a marvel of keeping an edge in shape without wearing it, and I'm convinced you could shave every day, hone with a finish hone for two minutes every 200 shaves, hardly wear the edge and have a razor that looks almost unused over many decades. You don't have to do it that way, but you can.
I've used my favorite fried dennert razor for probably about 1200-1500 shaves and it looks unchanged. After 185 shaves it was still passing HHT the last time I rehoned it and I only did so to test a hone (it went backwards a little bit on a WOA - but two more trips on the linen after that and it was back up to what it had been. It makes for a fantastically consistent edge - something you wish you could get on a disposable blade - feels the same at 5 months as it did at 2 weeks (the linen improves it a little bit the first couple of times you use it after a honing, which is something that I only do weekly - the linen use).
These counts were done with broken in butt strip, a $25 strip yielded two nice strops and a bunch of extra leather for use in the shop (for woodworking). Practically speaking, that strop has been as good as anything I've ever used, and I've used a lot of strops just out of curiosity, and more durable than most of the high end strops I've gotten, but it did take about 30 stropping sessions to get the "tooth" off of the initial leather. It was mildy abrasive and scratchy - no clue what that would've been, but it felt like silica and left scratches like silica would've - cosmetically ugly, but not too damaging.
Here is the back of my house-made strop - I didn't show this at first because I wanted to see if anyone would troll and tell me that it wasn't horween :)
Attachment 274156
my old barber who has a shell strop on his chair that was used daily for 50 years, is still in great shape, I,m pretty sure that shell is not fragile. my Neil Miller isn't showing any wear either. so I,m not sure where that's coming from. and there is no confusion, shell is not the horsehide or butt, its the membrane under the rear haunches. period. so one of the toughest strops you can get, and that's why quality shoes are made from it. in the old days there was thicker shells because the draft horses that worked built up a lot of muscle and membranes in their body, just not too many work horses today. Tc
It was hard enough just to get the standard cordovan color. I think I waited about two months, but they made no guarantees. when I talked to the guy at the retail office who took my order, he said that they will allocate to large orders (as in, you don't necessarily get a hard and fast place in line - if allen edmonds orders a whole bunch of shells, you go back to the back again, and I think that's fair). Two months was faster than it was suggested, so I was pretty happy with that.Quote:
Originally Posted by thebigspendur
If you start ordering off colors (and none of the strop makers would be seen as serious customers), then it gets a lot harder. I ordered the color that I got because it was suggested that's the one that I'd be able to get soonest (green would've been cool looking, though).
This discussion makes me want to do a little trial and error with a hard clean buff and some kind of fat. I wonder if I can get the surface uniform - certainly it will cost the finish that's on there - but I wonder if I can drive some fats into the leather at high heat and get a uniform burnish on it. It's been sitting in a bin in the bottom of my dresser for years because I was so mad when some of the surface treatment came off, but it's a shame to let it completely go to waste, and I don't have the heart to throw it on a piece of wood and let it accumulate wandering grit and metal particles in the wood shop.
Solid brass fixtures was a bad idea unless you use a strop hanging from over head (which is what I do). Otherwise, it's so heavy that you fight it - we learn by making mistakes, I guess!! I had the scrap brass, so it was free to make other than time spent.
Who makes the shell that was in your strop? I don't understand why you guys don't stick your necks out a little and make some of your own strops. It only takes a marking knife and a good quality straight edge.Quote:
Originally Posted by tcrideshd
I'm sure the shell on your barber's chair is a lot more like the french shell the japanese strop users are using than the horween treatment. I've probably got a dozen vintage shell strops, and none of them are like horween - there is a lot less treatment on the surface and the leather is more uniform front to back.
Thanks for all the clarifications DaveW, TC, TBS and others. I'm loving the vintage shells more and more for some of the reasons Dave outlined above (i.e.: they probably represent the pinnacle of the craft along with the undeniable vintage vibe), not to mention the sometimes seriously great deals you can get once you know what to look for.
But all of the terms and definitions can get confusing (and sometimes hours perusing the forums only adds to the confusion!). For instance, I had no idea about the fragile nature of the Horween surface treatment for certain rough stropping applications. I know I've seen at least a couple of makers advertising high-end shell strops proudly rolled around to show that exclusive Horween label. None of my vintage shells (even the very shiny ones) seem to have a surface treatment that one can strop away. They obviously just get more burnished with use.
Maybe their shell (Horween's) is better for watchbands, wallets, and shoes. There's an almost $400 black shell wallet hand-made by a guy on Etsy (out of a workshop in Asia somewhere IIRC) that just blows me away it is so gorgeous-I just can't justify that much for a wallet no matter how many lifetimes' use it will get.
Interesting and informative discussion all the way around! aaron
why should I stick my neck out and build what I can just buy? I don't build my own Tv or cars. its a strop. I will get no more satisfaction from one I made or one I bought. for the guys who like messing with it, that's great. I just have more important things to do than make a strop. have fun with it, Tc
I'm in a different boat. For me, using something that someone else made is an exercise in appreciation, sort of a 2D experience. Using something that I made, supposing I make it well, is far more satisfying, and more of a 3D type of experience. I don't know how to explain it more so than that, it's mentally more involved and satisfying, plus you always have the feeling that no matter what you break, you can make another. I could order another horween shell.
The only reason I don't suppose I'm just all wet with a single strop-eating razor is that I used the razor on my horse butt strop. It did very minor scuffing that was basically controlled by continuing to strop other razors. Then on the kanayama, the same razor marked that strop, too, but the marks disappeared with some hand rubbing. No such chance. So making instead of buying saved me about 150 bucks, and now I also feel like I can "waste" it by trying to repair the surface treatment.
If I hadn't seen Jared's strop also blown out at the top, I probably would've not said anything about it. I think it's worth noting, though, because every other type of leather I've used gets better rather than worse. Horween starts out *spectacular*. It's like honing on hard greased ice, but it's so expensive given that it doesn't have an indefinite lifetime and I'd guess more people have probably not found its limited lifetime because they haven't gotten to the thousands in hones of regular razors.
here's a picture of the current bismarck - the grooves on the spine now terminate and don't go to the edge of the spine or the top, which is, I'm sure, where they were tearing up strops. This would be more difficult to machine, but I'll bet I wasn't the only person complaining about them tearing up strops.
https://www.amazon.com/Dovo-Bismarck.../dp/B008JAGNLS
At any rate, the experience making is why, and secondarily the cost if that matters. I have enough strops that other people made that I can't really claim i'm saving anything. The best leather I've ever felt new on a strop is on a Japanese marked "jumbo". Much slicker than kanayama and as thick or thicker than the 80k that I had. I haven't used it yet. I like to make things, but I do appreciate having that one made by someone else (it wasn't expensive, but it wasn't necessarily cheap, either. Maybe $100? I can't remember).
It's not necessarily an issue of having more important things to do. It takes about 20 minutes to make a strop. One of the reasons I have time to screw with so much of this stuff is that I've completely stopped watching TV about four years ago. I wish I could kick the internet habit, too!!
There is one other side effect of making. Making literally makes you better at buying other peoples' things. I'd love to make razors at some point, but the finest razors I've ever used are tanifuji's better examples. I'll never make anything like them. I still might give razors a shot, though - but not until my kids are older and I have more time. Making things other than razors, and talking to some of the best makers in the world has really helped me appreciate the things that are really well made (by that, I mean like comparing a good effort from tanifuji to a later Filarmonica. The latter will often bring more money, but there's no sensible reason why - it's inferior in every way to the former). The horween strop I showed here was a couple of minutes of time to mark and cut. Making the brass was probably an hour (because I don't have machine tools other than a drill press - or didn't at the time), but that could've been avoided easily as the japanese strop hardware is available for about $12. I'd have been smarter to do that, I guess.
If I dig a little deeper in memory, I recall a Friedrich Dennert razor also damaging the horween, and the spinework isn't particularly brash or sharp. It may have been just digging at the damage that the other razor did.
It's notable, though, because none of the other strops I have took any significant damage from the same razors, and the horse butt doesn't even begin to show anything from the dennert spinework.
The haunches IS THE BUTT, the ass, the rump (ok, not the top skin?) of the horse. Go to Horweens to see the illustration of the place of different leathers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tcrideshd
ok Wildman, I guess theres a lack of communication here, are you asking the same question or just not getting it again, its not the hide that shell is made of, its under the skin Tc
“Cordovan – leather made from the shell of a horse butt, viz. from a kidney-shaped, very compact layer occurring in the butt of equine animals only, and isolated by removing the skin layer above and below it. It is vegetable tanned and curried.”
