Homemade Strop Mk I

Alright, after playing around with my materials for a little bit this is what I've come up. I have affixed my leather to a simple piece of cardboard. The flexibility and durability of the cardboard will probably become a problem later on but it works just fine for keeping the strop flat and tight. I'm pretty confident that this will travel much better then my hanging strop as the original idea was to make a strop short enough to fit into my briefcase without having to be rolled up. I had an unfortunate incident with my first strop becoming warped because of this, although it wasn't a particularly expensive one so I wasn't too angry.

The material itself is so small at 11 1/2 inches long that it's just not practical for a hanging setup. I am also thinking about trimming the small hole off of the whole affair as I worry about drawing an edge over it.

Overall this has been a good learning experience for me as I've never tried to make my own strop before, and I now know what to expect as far as working with the leather and tandy screw/rings. If anything this little piece will be handy for my knives.

Im also playing with strop making and so far mixed results, tho a bit more encouraging with 3-4mm leather, getting the leather to sit flat is a bit of a problem but ive stuck a piece of balsa to the back of one piece which seems to be doing the trick.

The next step is to use sandpaper so fully flatten it out then touch up with neatsfoot if needed. I had tried the bottle method but couldn't get one end to flatten out so that's why i resorted to the balsa. All good fun, gives me something to do, and cheep :)

good luck !

ian

Travel strops have been experimented with extensively. Yours is the first time I have seen cardboard used as a backing! Good imagination! :tuOne of the approaches that I like is placing a piece of felt between the leather and a wood base or a Barber hone. A "sandwich" of wood-felt-leather or hone-felt-leather.