300WSM,

One problem I have had with a very thick leather strop, was that the strop surface was rarely flat when you tensioned it; if you looked at the razors edge as it passed down the strop, you could clearly see that all the edge was not fully in contact with the strop. The surface, whilst not being bad enough to be described as cupped, was still not flat enough for decent stropping

I now use paddle strops exclusively; however they too can have surfaces that are far from flat. The two (2) best I have found are the Neil Miller paddles & the SRD paddle strop.

Have fun !

best regards

Russ