Which brand of strop? Model #'s ???

D

duller

Joined
Apr 14, 2007
Messages
242
Hi. Y'all have gotten me interested in stropping. I see Illinois Razor Co. strops and Col. Conk strops. With Ill. looking best in picture. Longer, too. But I'm a bit leary of the fancy brass ends. I want a real strop. Not a conversation piece.

These strops are horsehide on one side, and linen on the other.

I"ve read of using two creams. Red and White. Is this for the two sides of these strops? Or both for the leather side? In other words, are people putting an abrasive cream on the linen, too?

It would seem a long strop would be preferred to a short one. Is this true?

I used to look at the 2 piece strops hanging from the barber's chair when I was a boy. Never really understood it until reading some of these post. I thought the leather alone did the sharpening? I never saw a barber lift the razor cleanly straight up, either. In fact, they seemed to roll it so badly that when we'd imitate it, we thought the roll off was the action. Did I just not understand what I was seeing? Because they were so fast and well practiced?

If anyone can recommend some actual name brand strops and creams, I'd appreciate it.
 
I recommend gluing the leather to wood. Get your leather & CrO2 gel at HandAmerican.
 
depends on what your sharpening.

if your stropping straight razors then yeah.. you want a long hanging strop without the cutting compounds loaded into the leather because the thick spine of the razor sets your bevel angle but make sure you lift the blade off the strop before you turn it or your going to either slice into your strop or round off your edge.
if your stropping knives, a strip of split calf leather glued onto a piece of wood loaded up with cutting compound works better.
 
Those two-sided strops are for stropping straight razors. They'll work OK for knives but you will not use the linen side. If you will be stropping knives you are better off with the leather glued to a board. The HandAmerican ones are great. I use this one from the Woodcraft Store - it was designed by wood carver Rick Butz and it allows stropping of woodcarvers gouges and other tools I use for my whittling/carving. It is also perfectly acceptable for use with all knives. I use different compounds on the various faces of it - mostly green CrO2 and the gold Flexcut (blend of aluminum and titanium oxides) for more aggressive work.
 
Get a 3" x 15" strip of belt leather from a local leatherworker or shoemaker and a similar sized piece of MDF from the hardware store and glue the fuzzy side to the MDF. $7-9 will never have gotten your knives so sharp.

OR

Just get the MDF use your stropping compound on paper and stick the paper to the MDF. $3-5 will never have gotten your knives even sharper.
 
i have some deer and elk leather. if glued to a board, will either of these make a good strop ? the leather has been commercially tanned and is quite soft. no cattle leather, we're not allowed to hunt them here. roland
 
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