I don't know if any of you remember, a while ago I made myself a large paddle strop using kangaroo leather. It worked OK, but like most prototypes it had some issues I was not 100% happy about. For one thing it was too big. It looked and felt like I was using a cricket bat to strop on. Second, and more importantly, was the kangaroo leathers draw. Or rather lack of draw. The leather looked and felt wonderful to touch, but there was hardly any draw to speak of. The razor just glided smoothly over it without any drag, and this compromised the stropping effect. It was really frustrating. I really wanted to use this strop that I had made myself, but my TM strop, which is latigo, just worked better because it had better draw, so I ended up always using that.
So the experiments began.
A lot of time (and wasted leather) later and I have the Mk2. The leather has been specially treated with a top secret combination of substances which has given the roo leather a fantastic, smooth, yet grippy draw. It now really does the business aligning the edge. I can honestly say that this kangaroo leather, combined with the special treatment, out-strops anything I have tried. And I have been trying a LOT of things in the course of my experimentation.
The strop itself remains a paddle design. The finest kangaroo leather comes from the smaller animals. Of course this means that it is thinner. Roo leather is supper strong for its weight, but even so, thin means it has some stretch, and that could lead to cupping as it breaks in. So it stays a paddle, although I have tuned it to make it more usable. It is carved out of a single piece of maple, 18mm thick. It has had the stropping surface shrunk to a more sensible 65mm (2.5") x 38mm (15"). I found the easiest way of using the Mk1 was by holding the handle in my left hand and resting the blunt end on the sink or a towel rail. To help this, non skid rubber feet have been added to the base of the Mk2. The wood now has a polyurethane finish rather than the bees wax on the Mk1, which looked nice but was less durable.
I am going to try and make another one this weekend, just to make sure that the special treatment that has given the leather its "super stropping" capabilities was not a one-off fluke. If it works... eureka! I've finally cracked the secret to making kangaroo leather strop the way I want it to.
So the experiments began.
A lot of time (and wasted leather) later and I have the Mk2. The leather has been specially treated with a top secret combination of substances which has given the roo leather a fantastic, smooth, yet grippy draw. It now really does the business aligning the edge. I can honestly say that this kangaroo leather, combined with the special treatment, out-strops anything I have tried. And I have been trying a LOT of things in the course of my experimentation.
The strop itself remains a paddle design. The finest kangaroo leather comes from the smaller animals. Of course this means that it is thinner. Roo leather is supper strong for its weight, but even so, thin means it has some stretch, and that could lead to cupping as it breaks in. So it stays a paddle, although I have tuned it to make it more usable. It is carved out of a single piece of maple, 18mm thick. It has had the stropping surface shrunk to a more sensible 65mm (2.5") x 38mm (15"). I found the easiest way of using the Mk1 was by holding the handle in my left hand and resting the blunt end on the sink or a towel rail. To help this, non skid rubber feet have been added to the base of the Mk2. The wood now has a polyurethane finish rather than the bees wax on the Mk1, which looked nice but was less durable.
I am going to try and make another one this weekend, just to make sure that the special treatment that has given the leather its "super stropping" capabilities was not a one-off fluke. If it works... eureka! I've finally cracked the secret to making kangaroo leather strop the way I want it to.
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) it will last me a very long time. 
