leather for strop

[john davey]

Could this leather be used to make a strop?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cowhide-Leat...item3ccb3582c4

If not can someone point me in the direction of some place that sells scraps of leather?

Thanks, John

[Tri Hoang]

I went to a local Tandy leather shop and bought $10 worth of scraps. I made 3 strops and still have enough to make a few more. It was quite possibly the best $10 I've ever spent on tool/supplies. Look for thicker, longer pieces. I used contact cement to glue the leather to baltic birch plys. Two with smooth side out and one with rough (flesh) side out. I planed the rough side smooth with a block plane. That one turned out to be the best of the 3. I stopped using my Shapton Pro 12K stone after I learned to properly strop tools.

[Mark Wyatt]

While I think a lot of different leather options will work, I like the thickness of leather belt blanks. If you search you will find several sources like this:

http://www.sdtradingco.com/belt/4569.htm

[David Weaver]

If you want to use cowhide, 8-9 ounce vegetable tanned leather. It should be about $10-$12 a square foot.

Horse butt strips are nicer, but they are more expensive and more difficult to work with, and they'll probably get dirty and contaminated in your shop sooner or later, anyway, so there's no reason to get fancy.

TRY the plain leather first without glooping it up with compound, you'll be surprised how much it will improve an edge without adding crud to it to round over an edge.

[John Coloccia]

Almost any leather will make a good strop. A piece of MDF will make a good strop too. Nearly anything will make a good strop if charged with an appropriate compound. When I make strops, I usually do one side with no compound, and the other side get Simichrome. Depends on my mood which side I use.

Anyhow, I get all of my leather from the scrap bin at my local Tandy Leather. There's one in Essex...a bit of a ride for you, but you can probably buy enough cheap scrap leather in one trip to keep you fed for many years. I use leather for all sorts of things around the shop. I'm lucky that mine is just 20 minutes away, but I only have to go there every 2 years or so because a handful of scraps goes a LONG way.

[john davey]

Yes John I looked up Tandy and Essex is a little to far for me to go just for a strop (f150 gets 15 MPG). It's really more the traffic around here than the actual miles. If I ever head up there I will stop. I think I found a place in Laurel but do not know yet if they sell off scraps. Gonna stop by there on Saturday and see.