Thread: Ranking of strop materials

Originally Posted by DaveW

I just got off of the phone with them, burgundy and some darker color yet are the colors that are available right now (the preferred colors for other stuff might be harder to get), I don't care if my strop is burgundy.

Takes a few weeks to get a shell, but once mine comes in, I will repost to this or make a new post. From talking to the guy at tannery row, they are not unfamiliar with what we want to make a strop, even on the retail side (where the pictures look more like wallets and stuff).

The longest #2 shells, which are 1.75 square feet, are about 25 inches long, so figure something a little under 25 inches for the longest strop you could get, and since they are sort of an oval shape, perhaps 2 of slightly shorter than that. We'll see. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I would certainly be interested in hearing more about this. I'd probably go for a piece if it were to yield 2 strops. I like my SRD Kangaroo strop alot. I'm also interested in getting a piece of natural linen to try as a fabric but I have no idea where to buy that stuff.

There are bigger shells, too, but they cost more and they cost a little more per square foot.

#2 sized are right now a little under $100 a sq foot, and the biggest (which are 2.75 sq feet vs. the 1.75 for the #2) are just a tad over.

That could be very variable.

I chose the #2 based on their suggestion, and if you do the math if you really only want one long strop out of it and a couple of short ones, a properly selected piece should easily do that.

All of the strops I've made so far have been 2 feet long with no rings or anything at the bottom, a lot like the kanayama strop. I like them better without that stuff.

I re-read this thread a couple of times and pulled the trigger on a Kanayama 2196. Seems like a reasonable way to give cordovan a try. Curious how it will feel compared to my SRD Premium. Thanks for all the info!

I ordered one, too (a kanayama-an 80,000 from aframestokyo). I'll be interested in hearing how you get along with yours compared to another strop. I don't know anything about any other manufactured strops except the star strops (inexpensive, cowhide, enough to get me started in this hobby), and my own horse butt...and an NOS illinois horse butt strops. I haven't tried any other high dollar current manufacture strops.

I just received the Kanayama today and did some stropping on it and others I have. I posted on another thread so don't know if I need to post too much, but I will say that I really like the 2196. It's noticably smoother than my SRD Premium and I must say, I like the feel. Next to the Kanayama, my latigo is really a tough pull. I have an Illinois 361 (steerhide, it says) that is smoother but I rarely use it because it's so smooth, it just doesn't feel like it's doing anything. Too slick, if anything.

So the Kanayama will be my "go to" strop for the next little while. Quite handsome and a nice feel.

My horween #2 shell arrived on friday. It is a spectacular piece of leather. I'll lay it out this evening (my wife has me committed to some things today) to see what someone hypothetically get out of it if they did two strops. Regardless of whether or not I could get two 20 inch strops out of it, I'm going to take the longest piece I can right out of the middle and probably sell the rest of the leather on the S&S from either side to get back part of the money.

It is a spectacularly tanned piece of leather, very different on the surface and in thickness vs. the kanayama leather (which I still haven't used, being honest to my wife about it being a Christmas present).

I WISH I could find another silk finish NOS linen to go with the horween.

Originally Posted by DaveW

My horween #2 shell arrived on friday. It is a spectacular piece of leather. .

Pics please :-)

Here's the shell, about 24 inches long at its longest point:



It cut really nicely with a violin knife, really much nicer to cut than any leather I've cut so far (others being veg. tanned cowhide and horse butt strips). I don't have any special leather worker's tools and don't plan to do much leather cutting:



Which left most of it still...



Now I just need to affix something to one end of it to make it useable (I REALLY would like to find a silk finish linen before I put all of this together, if anyone has one collecting dust):



I'll probably sandwich the brass like this, and drill, taper and the pein it together with some brass rod or maybe mild steel rod (brass would be more tasteful). I'll fair a curve into the top piece before I do it and even out the point at the bottom, it looks kind of tasteless so far.

By the way, this strop was 24 inches long to start, it is a #2, and one could get two 22" strips of leather out of it. I cut right out of the heart of it and it's 24 inches measured at the longest points.

Obviously haven't stropped with either of them (this or the kanayama), but just looking so far, if I were going for cost, I would think about this or the low dollar kanayama strops (it's really hard to beat a cordovan strop like what Kanayama makes for $100, I don't know how he makes it for that). But I think based just on leather feel, the kanayama 80k is much more substantial (and more costly) and the surface is different, and feels a little more engineered to razors. That's not to say that this leather doesn't feel spectacular, it is the nicest raw material I've ever gotten by a mile or several of them, it really has superbly smooth surface feel that is uniformly tight and smooth. No visible pores, no nothing.

I think with what I have left, I could easily fence the leather on ebay for $100 to people who would make small leather goods, so that would leave me with a leather cost of about $80. That's not bad for having your own cordovan strop.

I don't know what the brass cost, it's just a simple 6" x 2" 1/8th thick piece of 360 alloy brass. I would've used something a little cheaper if I hadn't had it as excess. Something from home depot would've been fine.

With what you have left over you could make two 19" strops that would be well regarded.?