Hello Gents, I'm going to be cutting the leather to length soon for the strop I am making. I have seen various lengths on strops over the years. Seeing I really only use 16" of my strop and the current one I use is 24" I am debating about the length of the custom one I am making. My thought is the the longer the strop the more flex it will have. Basic physics. If you string a power line between two poles the wider the span of the poles the more flex or "belly" you will have. If you put the poles closer together with the same tension on the line it will have less flex or "belly". So I am thinking a 19" surface should be plenty of stropping room for me and will make for a stiffer stropping surface. Thoughts?