I'm a newbie and I need a strop.
I received quite a few recommendations about what beginners strop to get but, since all of the good cheaper ones had to be imported from overseas, the postage was as much as the strop. All the ones available locally were either kinda expensive or rubbish...
So I have decided to make my own. I am reasonably handy and have so far restored one blade and I have been restoring brushes for a while now, so a leather strop does not seem like too hard a task.
Since Kangaroo leather is not much harder to get here than cow leather I thought I might go in that direction, so I ordered a small hide. It feels beautiful and I have used it for stropping a couple of times just by laying it out on a table and stropping on it that way. It seems to work really well even like that, at least to my newbie eye.
The only problem is the leather is a lot thinner than cow or horse leather and I am worried it might be too stretchy to use as a conventional hanging strop. One idea was to make it double sided, either kangaroo/ cow or kangaroo/ kangaroo.
Another idea was to make a paddle strop and glue it to that. My newbie question on that idea, is there a reason why paddle strops seem to be so small? All the ones I have seen pictures of, and for sale, seem to be a lot smaller than a hanging strop, which I think might make it harder for me to use, as I'm just learning.
Is there any reason why I shouldn't make a paddle strop with a surface area as big as a hanging strop? Say 2.5" X 12" ? If it would work it would solve a lot of problems with getting and attaching fittings to hang the strop, and also the thinness of the leather wouldn't be an issue. Or would it? What do you guys think? I do have enough leather for a couple of ideas but I still don't want to waste kangaroo on something dumb that definitely wouldn't work.