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Strop Acquisition Thread

Tony Miller

Speaking of horse butts…
Looks nice! Kangaroo leather? I have a roo strop that’s very similar, it was made by @Legion many years ago.

It is an oiled cowhide with a brushed finish to try and add a bit more draw to it. I can occasionally do them in horsehide, either smooth or rough surface.

I do have some kangaroo but I just feel it is too thin for something I want to offer. Mine feels like thick copy paper :confused1. While a great, quality leather it just does not impart the same satisfaction of ownership to me as a thicker leather does. I know some have been able to source thicker kangaroo and that would be a material I would be happy to offer at some point.
 
Tony Miller’s ”Roughout” strops are top of the heap. Not being a fan of a super slick draw, I eschew such materials that have a quick personality. Tony’s bridle leather offering is as glassy as I can work with. His rough horsehide and (especially) steerhide strops are simply apples. Finest of their kind.
 

Tony Miller

Speaking of horse butts…
Tony Miller’s ”Roughout” strops are top of the heap. Not being a fan of a super slick draw, I eschew such materials that have a quick personality. Tony’s bridle leather offering is as glassy as I can work with. His rough horsehide and (especially) steerhide strops are simply apples. Finest of their kind.

The Rough Steerhide does have significantly more draw than the horsehide version was the fuzzy side is softer and drag on the blade more.
 
It is an oiled cowhide with a brushed finish to try and add a bit more draw to it. I can occasionally do them in horsehide, either smooth or rough surface.

I do have some kangaroo but I just feel it is too thin for something I want to offer. Mine feels like thick copy paper :confused1. While a great, quality leather it just does not impart the same satisfaction of ownership to me as a thicker leather does. I know some have been able to source thicker kangaroo and that would be a material I would be happy to offer at some point.

Any plans to offer a Cordovan strop?
 

Tony Miller

Speaking of horse butts…
Any plans to offer a Cordovan strop?

Probably not. The seriously high price of each shell translates into a final selling price I am just not comfortable asking. Material costs alone would be more than I even sell a completed strop for now if I were to buy a top grade shell from Horween.

Cordovan is great stuff but I just don't feel it is that much better for the money. To me the "juice is not worth the squeezing" as a friend of mine always says :biggrin1:

There is a good thread elsewhere on B&B about making cordovan strops where I and others talk about materials, costs and reasons for using or not using cordovan.
 
Probably not. The seriously high price of each shell translates into a final selling price I am just not comfortable asking. Material costs alone would be more than I even sell a completed strop for now if I were to buy a top grade shell from Horween.

Cordovan is great stuff but I just don't feel it is that much better for the money. To me the "juice is not worth the squeezing" as a friend of mine always says :biggrin1:

There is a good thread elsewhere on B&B about making cordovan strops where I and others talk about materials, costs and reasons for using or not using cordovan.
Thanks for replying. I may have to dig around for that thread. Sounds like an interesting read.
 

Tony Miller

Speaking of horse butts…
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A month or so ago I received a Tony Miller Plain Chocolate strop, it’s a wonderful strop and I’ve really been enjoying it.

A couple of weeks after receiving the Plain Chocolate I got a chance to try the TM Roughout/Linen Pass-around. I found the contrast in texture and draw between the Notovan/Cotton of the Chocolate and the Roughout/Linen strops to be wonderful - sort of different ends of the stropping spectrum, so I decided to order a Roughout with the Linen 2nd.

Some years back I suffered an injury to my left wrist and forearm which causes me ongoing discomfort, particularly when holding/squeezing things with my left hand. I relayed this to Tony and he worked with me during the ordering process to modify the standard Roughout by changing the handles to Roughout leather, which is a bit more “grippy” than the standard Latigo. He matched the strop end caps to the handles, making the strop a complete Roughout, which I happen to think looks great.

The strop arrived and I love it: Feels great to strop on both the Roughout and Linen components, and I am finding the handles very comfortable and non-aggravating with regards to my injury.

Tony also helped me come up with some better options for my ring equipped strops as well, but perhaps I’ll touch on that in a future post.

My thanks to @Tony Miller for the wonderful strop and his enthusiasm on the project: Tony I really appreciate your genuine interest helping me find solutions to my particular challenges :punk:
 
My new fantasy is a group buy that would facilitate there being such a thing as a Tony Miller Cordovan strop.

I would do what I could to make that happen. If rich roomy women could help Reubens create great paintings, why couldn't we provide the financial cushion that would bring such a thing into existence? It would be like harnessing our greed for awesome shave gear for an artistic purpose.
 
Ha! Good one Richard ! :001_tt2:


At one point I had my Amish friends help cut strop blanks and make end caps for me but once I had more time I did everything in house. They did a wonderful job and I enjoyed my visits with them greatly. My 4 sided paddle blanks are still made by a Mennonite woodturner in Lancaster to my pattern and finished here in my shop. I did have a friend help assemble hanging strops many years ago but had to redo way too much work. It is hard to make others care as much about what you do as you do yourself.

I am my product and the two cannot be separated :biggrin1:

This post here speaks of passion for one's work.

I am fortunate to have one heirloom strop headed my way from a fellow member on another forum who bought one fo your strops as a step up from some other strops however didn't use it as often due to waning interest in SR shaving perhaps.

I’s the 3” Artisan “Notovan” Horsehide premium “Old NO. 2” with the standard cotton option.

Reading your posts here, especially this "my product is me" has my eagerness to get it in my hands (or to get my straight razor on your strop ) increase many fold !
 

Legion

Staff member
It is an oiled cowhide with a brushed finish to try and add a bit more draw to it. I can occasionally do them in horsehide, either smooth or rough surface.

I do have some kangaroo but I just feel it is too thin for something I want to offer. Mine feels like thick copy paper :confused1. While a great, quality leather it just does not impart the same satisfaction of ownership to me as a thicker leather does. I know some have been able to source thicker kangaroo and that would be a material I would be happy to offer at some point.

the problem with the thick roo leather is that it comes from the bigger, older animals. Roos lead a rough and tumble life, so the older they are, the more scars on the hide. A lot of wastage.

In my experience the thin stuff works great, as it conforms to the blades edge. And it has very little stretch compared to other leathers of similar thickness. But you want to be on point with your stropping, because you can still slice it with a bum stroke.
 
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the problem with the thick roo leather is that it comes from the bigger, older animals. Roos lead a rough and tumble life, so the older they are, the more scars on the hide. A lot of wastage.

In my experience the thin stuff works great, as it conforms to the blades edge. And it has very little stretch compared to other leathers of similar thickness. But you want to be on point with your stropping, because you can still slice it with a bum stroke.

Forgive a dumb question here, but... I'm stropping trailing - that's correct, right(?) How do would one slice into the leather? Through a more pronounced 'X' motion...?

(I shall watch out for that if so. Or perhaps I'm just doing it completely wrong to begin with!)
 
Forgive a dumb question here, but... I'm stropping trailing - that's correct, right(?) How do would one slice into the leather? Through a more pronounced 'X' motion...?

(I shall watch out for that if so. Or perhaps I'm just doing it completely wrong to begin with!)
You can sometimes nick a strop on an x-stroke if you're torquing the blade too much at the end of the motion. But where most of my nicks came from, early on, was from flipping the blade while it was still moving. Easy to do if you're going too fast. I just think strop/STOP/flip now, and knock on wood, haven't cut my strop in quite a while.
 
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