Thread: Making my own strop

I want to make my own strop but am having a hard time finding 3" cotton webbing for it, does anyone have a source?

thanks!

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I made a nice one from a 3" piece of leather from Tandy. But, does anyone have any ideas on how to smooth the surface?

The finishes are somewhat std. Each would benefit from some hand or bottle conditioning of the surface w/ neetsfoot or other conditioner. I did 3 latigo, and switched to horse hide. I'm likeing the HH alot.

I stayed with the cow's leather b/c Tandy doesn't sell horsehide and their latigo isn't much smoother than the standard leather. I have lathered the strop with soupy shaving soap and pressed with the side of a coffee mug to smooth the surface. That helped a lot. Should I also use neatfoot oil and press again with the side of the mug?

The reason is that I expect my razors back from being sharpened by SRD anytime now and I don't want to ruin the nice new edges.

I by no means know how to work leather very well, but what I did seems to have worked for me: I started dry-sanding at about 400 grit, moved up to 600, 800, 1000, 1500, and then 2000 until I had a nice smooth surface. It definitely has to be dry sanding. It really didn't take very long at all, and I don't feel that I really took that much material off.

Do you mean using the sandpaper on the smooth side of the leather? Wouldn't that ruin the finished surface by making it soft?

Originally Posted by jbtusa

Do you mean using the sandpaper on the smooth side of the leather? Wouldn't that ruin the finished surface by making it soft?

Oops, kinda hijacked this thread, sorry. But you having burnished already with the mug, sanding will mess that up. Are you talking about a roughness to the leather, or actual wrinkles? To remove the wrinkles that I had in my leather, I soaked the leather, and then rolled it up with the wrinkles on the inside and let it dry completely. I found this pulls the wrinkles out smooth because you're compressing the leather on the inside of the curve. The other option for wrinkles is to stretch it while wet, and let it dry, I think. Maybe research some leatherworking sites? Good luck.

Kanayama strops are sanded as part of the finishing process.

The best info I have found regarding finishing strops was in Iwasaki-san's paper on razors. He goes into detail the process of re-finishing a strop. Jim Rion has a translation on his website.

Since I don't know what I'm doing, I think that I'll forego using sandpaper on the finished leather surface. Rather, I'll just keep working sudsy lather into the leather to wet it and then pressing with the side of the coffee mug. I think I'll get it wetter next time. It seems to work, albeit slowly. (Better to go slow than to ruin a nice piece of leather.)