First DIY strop

[rhgg2]

I've been straight shaving for a month now but struggling along with a SSO (strop shaped object) in place of an actual strop. Reliable cheap options in Australia are difficult to find but @Slash McCoy gave me some pointers to DIY one of my own. So I got in the parts from Birdsall Leather here in NSW: a 120cm length of 3" veg tanned belt leather, some 1/4" key posts and 50cm D-rings. The leather looks quite nice:

I've never worked with leather before. The only tool I got was a 3/16" wad punch for the key posts. Here goes... Cutting a notch for the D-rings:

Wet the end and fold it over:

After a lot of hammering and swearing, key posts in at one end:

After doing the other end and giving it a spritz and a rub down with a big jam jar, here's the finished result. Stropping length is 18" between the hardware:

It's pretty flat, no cupping, and the edge needs nothing done to it at all:

I'd call this a success. Total cost $45 AUD and I still have the parts left over to make another one. Looking forward to trying it out!

 

[rbscebu]

Very good and lovely work. I would at least sand the edge corners but that's just me.

I might do the same but with kangaroo leather and 2½" wide (my preference). I'll pop in to see my local saddler when next I go to town.

 

[Slash McCoy]

Well done. If you destroy it all you really destroy is the leather, which you can replace easily enough. Your hardware will last approximately 27,833 years. Give or take a few hundred thousand.

The fold-over construction style works but I do think separate bolster pieces that fold over the D rings and sandwich the body is superior, and a little simpler to renew the body leather. But, my first DIY strop was of foldover construction and I still have it and use it.

If you could get your material costs down, you could make those and sell them there in Oz. You won't get rich but you might help a brother out who wants to get started. You could make a set of templates for cutting and punching, for full interchangeability. I hear you got lots of kangaroos that need skinning, too, and everyone raves about roo strops. Could be a thing.

 

[Darth Scandalous]

The edges do look pretty good. If you do end up needing to address them, I like to rub a little beeswax into the rough edge, then burnish with wood, or glass, or both. A wooden cabinet knob works great, and for glass you can work it in the collar of that jam jar you used to work the surface.

There are purpose made tools for these things, of course, but if all you're doing is strops you can easily improvise.

 

[Tony Miller]

Nice job! My first strops had fold over ends as well. I find veg tanned steerhide to be a very nice material and almost always has a nice draw to make an all-around use strop. Not too fast and not too slow. Very tidy job on that one, well done.

 

[Frank Shaves]

Nicely done - congrats!

 

[rhgg2]

Thanks, all!

My plan with this one is to treat it with nothing more than regular hand rubbing. I may experiment with some treatments on the other length I have. Clearly I didn't do enough rubbing before starting to use this one as the first two shaves off of it were among the worst I've had since I started, with the blade feeling sharp but somehow ineffective and unable to cut closely. After a lot of hand rubbing yesterday it is starting to loosen up and today's shave was very smooth.

There is some very mild cupping but nothing that can't be resolved by very lightly pinching the edges and running my hand along the length once, then it's good for the whole stropping. I guess I could work it a bit more like this so it falls naturally into a crown but I am going for minimal intervention.

 

[PintoPlain]

Nice strop. The only strop I use is a home made roo strop. Got the leather from a seller on ebay a few years ago. I went with the sandwiched ends as roo skin is very thin and I figured I'd need the extra thickness.

Did you have much trouble getting the leather and other bits and pieces in Australia?

 

[rhgg2]

Nice strop.

Thanks!

Did you have much trouble getting the leather and other bits and pieces in Australia?

Nope, company called Birdsall Leather has a wide range of leathers, tools, oils, hardware... so actually just a one stop shop.

 

[rhgg2]

Second strop from the same strip!

This one I cut down to 2.5", and only two screws this time. I also soaked the strip for a couple of hours, rubbed it a lot with a jar as it dried, added three drops of neatsfoot oil and hand rubbed for half an hour. The surface finish is more recognisably like leather - the untreated one is still a bit glassy. As such this one has a bit more draw which is good for a beginner like me - with the other strop the difference in feel between good edge contact and just scraping the spine is pretty subtle, whereas here the feedback is quite obvious.

Where it doesn't differ is that it's still nearly as stiff as a board. I guess it will break in with time and more hand rubbing, though probably not from the razor itself so much - I don't know how much a 9/16 full hollow will work this 9oz leather.

I think I prefer the 2.5" width. The X strokes feel natural and I'm not worried so much about uniform edge contact.

 

[rhgg2]

So last night I discovered I had embedded a tiny shard of glass (!!) into the strop. I think I was a bit careless tidying up our workroom (which has a glass grinder in it) where I assembled everything. The shard was super small, maybe like 1/4 mm but stropping over it felt exactly like hitting a massive pothole. Fortunately it was sitting well below the surface so didn't mash up the edge to blazes. But it had me sitting scratching my head for a while - until I shone a bright light on it under magnification had no idea what was causing the massive bump as to the naked eye and even feeling carefully with the hand it was completely undetectable. I guess it was so noticeable while stropping as the glass did not compress like the leather under the blade.

 

[Eshebert]

I finished this one yesterday, sanded both sides to 2000 grit. Do not plan to apply paste, just a paddle to add to the tool box. I really like it, smooth and works great, hanging stop is next.

 

[Alum of Potash]

I'm curious as to why you chose to put the handle to one side, rather than center it.

 

[Eshebert]

Because it’s different and I have not seen it before. Not one for rules or heard mentality. I think the cleaver look is cool. I made the handle pretty long, the balance is nice.