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Made my own strop.

After seeing how nice your strop turned out i decided to dig out some old chaps and see what i can do with them.
Thanks for the inspiration! Your strop turned out awesome, never hurts to have a few i think.
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Finally got around to getting one done. Cut out the material to make 5 and found out the finish and suede leather needed to be conditioned and then hung up with 8lbs weight for tension for 2 days before back to flat enough for strops.
 

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So I’ve bought several strops from amazon and they have all come packaged in a way that leaves creases and humps and makes them unusable. I really want a Tony Miller, but not in stock and I really need a strop. I got from another member here but again, it wasn’t packaged correctly and it is creased badly and nicked quite a bit. Disclaimer. I’m not a handy guy but as of late I’ve been trying. So in my google searches I found a leather store in my area. I went this morning and the nice lady there showed me about a three foot strip of veg tanned cowhide, three inches wide. I bought it and a punch for a grand total of $42 after tax. I measured and punched and used hardware from the strop I got from the board here and made my own strop! its fairly long, but I’m going to throw a rubdown with neatsfoot oil, and use it! I figure I can cut it down if I want to.
Bonus, I have a piece leftover that’s even longer to make a another strop if I choose. It’s not perfect, there may be a 1/16 or 1/8 inch off, but it’s almost perfect and I’m pretty proud of it! View attachment 1169902

Nice job! Enjoying your own handmade strop is one of life's pleasures.
 
Thanks. It’s a really thick piece of leather but I just did 100 passes with my razor and it feels good. We will see the shave soon!
Honestly, I feel like a little kid bringing a drawing from school for my parents. I’m REALLY proud of it. Lol. All I did was cut and punch some holes in leather, but I feel like I just painted the Sistine Chapel:biggrin1:
That looks really nice, congrats. Maybe get a wood burner and burn a date and initials in it to pass down someday?
 
Those strops look awesome! I especially like the faux elephant. It looks to me like you are using some diamond stitching chisels to make your holes at the top? If you have any interest in going further down the leatherwork rabbit hole, you could take the tools you already have and learn to saddle stitch which uses two needles and a single thread. If you hop over to Youtube and search for Nigel Armitage Saddle Stitch or Ian Atkinson Saddle Stitch they have great videos to get you up to speed. There is nothing wrong with the way you are doing it and they look great, I am just saying if you want to dive into more traditional leatherwork that would be an easy next step.
 
Thank you for the kind words sir. Your observation with tools is accurate. Yes I can saddle stitch and do we I feel its needed for me.

These are saddle stitched, also other items such as wallets. The leather is sold as faux buffalo but I’m with you on elephant.

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For the most part, those points in your first point are all spot-on, though I haven’t found much difference between harder and softer leathers in terms of performance. With softer leather, you may have to pay more attention to strop pressure, but it shouldn’t have an effect if your technique’s good. And for oil-tanned vs veg-tanned, I’ve been using the second more often too. Though some popular leathers like latigo are oil-tanned to some degree, if not the entire way. So that’s your choice. And for roo and horse, I never knew that about them! I’ve also found them to give some truly fine edges, but was never aware that they had silicates that make them the way they are. Cool stuff though!👌
 
@adjuplessis And great looking strops! I too enjoy making strops for the same reasons you do - getting to try them out!

I originally started with veg-tanned leathers, then moved on to finer choices like Horween horse, kangaroo, water buffalo and Hermann Oak English bridle. Recently I re-stocked, as I’m looking to explore and offer more choices on my Etsy shop. Though I have yet to sell, all the strops I’ve made look great to me and work like a charm! Among the new leathers I’ve got coming are some replacement veg-tanned (natural) cow, horse butt, Wicket& Craig and Sedgwick English bridle and Italian Vachetta.
 
Here are a couple I made: kangaroo + cotton webbing, horsehide + flax firehose, chestnut bridle + red latigo and veg-tanned cow + water buffalo:
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My inspiration was from the modular design Tony and Straight Razor Designs have used, particularly the latter. SRD offered all kinds of choices, including different kinds of cowhide, English bridle, kangaroo, natural, latigo and horse, and that variety made me want to try them all out. But they were out of business when I began to delve into the world of strops, so I decided to make my own line of them.
 
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Initially, I was getting awkward, uneven cuts from tracing the strop handles on my TM Notovan to the leather back to back. So I designed these handles using an app from a design class I took here at UVA, cut them out of paper using a silhouette, then sent them to our lab manager for 3D printing. Since then, my cuts have been far smoother, and I’ve been a hell of a lot happier with my projects.:)
 
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