Burlap for 'linen' side.

[AcesandEights]

So, last night I was in the shop making a new strop, as the only one I have is my late Father's and I'd like to preserve it. Working with leather for 25yrs, I have a lot of leather and hardware.

Anyway, I go inside to grab a drink and my wife and daughter-in-law are making crafty stuff for a baby shower (patiently waiting the arrival of my 1st Grand-Daughter, BTW). I see they have a few rolls of 3" wide burlap. Light bulb goes off, wondering how it would work for the 'linen' side of my strop. I did feel a little on the harsh side, so my 1st thought was, either, to calm it down by lightly running it across some 400grit OR just let it calm down on its own.

Thoughts, comments, concerns, suggestions?

[Euclid440]

It would probably work ok, depending on the weave, I have thought of using some upholstery burlap strips that are used to hole the springs down in older chairs.

Most any tight woven fabric will work as a linen strop replacement, cotton, nylon or plain cloth. You could use iron on fusing tape to glue the ends together in place of sewing, that iron on glue is super strong and easy to use.

Do post your results.

[RezDog]

You could try to break some in. Take a good sized strip and run it back and forth over some clean pipe, like a chunk of 1" iron pipe, or what ever you have that will wear the surface slightly to smooth it out. I did that with a piece of hem that seemed to chill it out a lot. Sounds like a worthy experiment to me.

[AcesandEights]

Keep in mind this is made out if scraps that I had in the shop. But, considering, I believe it came out OK. A piece of 'Craft' burlap is on the back side. I ran it across the belt sander to take a lot of the harshness off.

I wanted to preserve Dad's strop, but still wanted a bit of him in something I would use daily. So, I used part of his hardware( complete with his name he engraved in it, back before I was born ).

[RezDog]

your pictures are not working.

[AcesandEights]

Fixed the pics.