aproy1101 said:
Interesting. See learn something new every day. I've been stropping my knives since I was a kid, but had never used the smooth side. Thanks guys.
Andy if you were old enough to remember whenever you got a haircut the *Barber*, a man, *NOT* a stylist and a woman, would shave behind your ears and the back of your neck with a straight razor nicely stropped on his *smooth leather* hanging loose razor strop you'd have known what all us old farts just know.
More often than not the razor strop also had another strop made of a heavy canvas looking sort of material for stropping right after honing on the whetstone, *NOT* a wetstone.
The object was to whet your knife on the whetstone, NOT* wet it on a wetstone.
The double strops really hurt when ya got yer ass busted with one because it was getting hit twice every strike.
:grumpy:
The strop was adjusted for the amount of slack by how hard the barber pulled on it when stropping his razor.
But back in those days you would often see men layed way back in the barber chair with a couple of steaming hot towels covering his face in preparation of getting shaved with said straight razor.
Said razor strops were fine for razors and large and small straight edged knives. Weren't worth a cow pie on recurved or curved edges because they were way too wide, usually about 3" although they did vary somewhat in width.
After steaming your beard soft with the steaming hot towels the barber would then use a real badger hair bristle brush in a mug with a cake of hard shaving soap that created steaming white suds that was lathered on your face and neck.
You never *Argued* politics or religion with your barber and especially *NOT* just before he put that razor at the base of your throat.
A quick swipe sideways and it was all over in 10 minutes or less.
But I love the design. Like you, I just glue a piece of leather to a board.
