Plain Stropping - Looking for Advice

[David Barnett]

Those flaws in the leather on the left (you may not see them as such) are toxic for a razor strop. They result in spots where the leather doesn't touch the razor edge, and that's bad. They would be excellent for tools, though.

Ah... I see what you mean. Actually, I wouldn't use those sections for razor or tool strops. I require bench strops to be flat and smooth with no discernable flaws, which is why such strips barely yield 3 full-sized strops and several smaller strops—as you might guess, I have a few around my several workshops—with the remaining scrap used for washers, pads, and whatever else comes to mind.

[glenn bradley]

re: leather strops, expense, etc
I get my leather from the scrap bin of my local Tandy leather. I have a lot of leather around the shop for various reasons, and I doubt I paid more than $20 for all of it.

I too have a wad of leather from Tandy purchased years ago. I am always finding uses for it and will re-stock when I finally run out.

[Russell Cook]

Hi all,

Thanks for all the replies.

Could any of the palm stroppers tell me how to do this? I tried this once before, after my Sigma 6000, by laying the bevel on the bottom right corner of my left palm and swiping, and this left a fine cut on my palm (no blood, thankfully).

I have also tried using paper on my bench and stropping with a trailing stroke, just two or three strokes. This was at least useful in that the dried abrasive from the Sigma 6000 was totally wiped off, but I'm too inexperienced to tell what the effect on the edge was.

[Chris Griggs]

You need to either hold your palm open and pull the blade down NOT SIDEWAYS, switching from bevel to back every other stroke (or really every few strokes works too) OR you need to hold the blade and swipe your palm down off the blade, again switching between the back and bevel. NO SIDEWAYS MOTION even a slight lateral motion can cut you.

[Steve Friedman]

David B - Thanks for that explanation of stropping leather. I had a pair of real cordovan shoes many years ago. Guess I should have saved the leather.

I have had the horse butt strop from Tools for Working Wood for years, but rarely used it because it was so big. A couple of weeks ago I mounted it to a piece of hard maple to use for carving tools.

I mounted 6" leather and felt wheels on my slow speed grinder and find that they produce very shiny results, but not sharp. It would be nice to be able to use that for quick honing, but it's not working. Maybe I just need more practice and a lighter touch.

Thanks again,

Steve

[David Weaver]

David B - Thanks for that explanation of stropping leather. I had a pair of real cordovan shoes many years ago. Guess I should have saved the leather.

I have had the horse butt strop from Tools for Working Wood for years, but rarely used it because it was so big. A couple of weeks ago I mounted it to a piece of hard maple to use for carving tools.

I mounted 6" leather and felt wheels on my slow speed grinder and find that they produce very shiny results, but not sharp. It would be nice to be able to use that for quick honing, but it's not working. Maybe I just need more practice and a lighter touch.

Thanks again,

Steve

Once that cordovan is stretched onto a shoe form, it's all over in terms of the possibility of using it as a strop. But, good shell upper shoes are basically a forever product if you can manage to avoid cutting them or getting a perforation. When I went on a tear trying to find US made shoes and landed (much to my chagrin in terms of price) on allen edmonds as basically the only available decent looking choice for the office, I noticed a lot of pairs of hanover shoe, florscheim and allen edmonds shoes that were *very* old but still in good shape on ebay. Some 50 years old or older....shell cordovan. (I didn't get shell cordovan, though, just cowhide).

Hanover was a shoe brand 10 minutes from where I grew up. It's a shame what happened to it. Then they got the bostonian brand and did the same thing to it. There is a gigantic gap between allen edmonds shoes and the brands now that have had all of their corners cut off, and once you get over the sticker shock of $300 shoes, you can get them recrafted completely every couple of years for $125 (I don't know why I'm defending the economics of their model, must be spender's guilt).

Imagine back when shell was used for everything (early 1900s) there were a lot of working horses to get shells from given that a large percentage of the population was agriculture and for every farm there were several work horses as well as recreational horses on some.

Your conclusions about a power buff are correct. They need to be pretty hard or they threaten geometry fast, and they can do the same even if hard. Less is more, or you can end up with a highly polished more blunt (but very strong, and sometimes that's not bad) edge.

[Steve Friedman]

Once that cordovan is stretched onto a shoe form, it's all over in terms of the possibility of using it as a strop. But, good shell upper shoes are basically a forever product if you can manage to avoid cutting them or getting a perforation. When I went on a tear trying to find US made shoes and landed (much to my chagrin in terms of price) on allen edmonds as basically the only available decent looking choice for the office, I noticed a lot of pairs of hanover shoe, florscheim and allen edmonds shoes that were *very* old but still in good shape on ebay. Some 50 years old or older....shell cordovan. (I didn't get shell cordovan, though, just cowhide).

Hanover was a shoe brand 10 minutes from where I grew up. It's a shame what happened to it. Then they got the bostonian brand and did the same thing to it. There is a gigantic gap between allen edmonds shoes and the brands now that have had all of their corners cut off, and once you get over the sticker shock of $300 shoes, you can get them recrafted completely every couple of years for $125 (I don't know why I'm defending the economics of their model, must be spender's guilt).

I know it's off topic, but Allen Edmonds has an outlet store in Freeport, ME, only an hour south of Lie-Nielsen. Still not cheap, but the re-crafting service really works. Just need to keep the uppers intact.

Steve

[David Barnett]

(I would love to have a pair of shoes made out of horween shell, but it's not in the cards unless I lose some sensibility or buy used shoes, and I'm not likely to do the latter unless they show up worn once.

If you're not quite ready to spring for the Allen Edmonds, it would follow you're even less inclined to spring for a pair of G. Cleverly shell cordovans, but you just might, considering your interest in woodworking hand tools, wish to try your hand at cordwaining.

The woodworking part, the making of lasts—a truly basic wood craft—is thoroughly doable and engaging, requiring little beyond a hatchet or drawknife, rasps, knives, chisels, scrapers and whatever one might press into service.

While I first learned the geometric method of George Koleff, from his Last Designing & Making Manual, there are other more intuitive and straightforward methods, some more intuitive that involve direct patterning with minimal measuring. At any rate, the work isn't all that demanding and happens gradually enough to get it right from the first try.

Of course one can buy composition lasts, but where's the fun in that? Making your own wooden lasts is somehow very satisfying. Making them for friends and family members is rewarding, too—I've given finished and mounted lasts as gifts to others and they've been displayed like sculpture in homes and offices.

Just a taste—a Japanese last-maker: parts one, two, three, and four. Direct last patterning: part one and two.

Anyway, once you have a pair of lasts made to your own feet, you can proceed to making an uppers pattern (fairly easy with the masking tape method), click it (cut it out), skive it (I love to skive, but I started as a bookbinder), all using simple tools you probably have; an Xacto knife, a utility knife and a candle—and with some persistence and further help from YouTube*, you'll end up with a pair of custom fit handmade "bespoke" shoes.

I'm not advising you click those pieces of Horween shell cordovan you waited two years to wrangle, but there are lots of very workable alternatives to fit a beginner's not-for-400-dollars wallet.

Where other crafts began as amateur obsessions then progressed from there, cordwaining has remained an avocation, and while it's been a few years since I've needed shoes to fit my very wide, high instep foot, I still retain my fascination for the craft.

*Parts four, five, six, and the rest of Andrew Wrigley's series.

[David Weaver]

I did spring for the AEs, but you're right, anything from bond street is going to be out of my price range. Except maybe shaving soap (even then, there are some superb soaps and creams that are very inexpensive, the bond street label on soaps is for the non-deal seekers like me).

[David Barnett]

I'm a longtime Geo. F. Trumper addict.

[David Weaver]

I'm a longtime Geo. F. Trumper addict.

I'd claim that it's out of my price range, but have to hide a tub of Martin De Candre before saying it. What's been the biggest surprise of all of the soaps and creams that I've tried is Real Shave Company cream that is sold at drugstores. Other than the scent, if I am being honest, it is as good as anything I have tried anywhere, and made by creightons in england. It's almost as if they've experimented with filling low price tubes with top of the line cream to see if anyone would notice. It's 5 bucks here for a tube of it. The scent is the only thing, it has an earthy smell instead of a more typical english scent, but I've gotten used to it.

I rotate 8 creams and soaps, that way I don't ever get used to the smell of one and they all smell great to me, for the most part. Proraso is a bit bland and Tabac smells a little like old-man-from-the-turn-of-the-century.

MdC is great, La Toja (which is a budget cream in spain, but not budget here) is fabulous, the creightons tube of Real Shave Co. is fantastic and cella is a great high volume low cost soap (that does also lack a little with scent). Mitchell's wool fat is also good, but overpriced if bought here (about $12 if bought directly from england and shipped here, vs. about $25 here).

How did we get on this?

[Shaun Mahood]

You know, when you two Davids get talking I really get the sense that I've missed out on a lot of interesting things so far in my life. I love it!

[David Barnett]

The scent is the only thing, it has an earthy smell instead of a more typical english scent, but I've gotten used to it. ...

How did we get on this?

I'll briefly steer it back to woodworking. As you know, I've had a longstanding fondness for wet shaving treen—cream and soap dishes, mugs, brushes, stands and so on, turned and carved—even to the point of having hair-stacked my own badger knots just to have done it.

My own lifelong obsession with scent, from simple gums and resins to essential oils, enfleurage and beyond, led me to design and begin a perfumer's organ and had my client lived, it might've been my masterpiece—at least I entertain that self-indulgent notion. It was based on a favorite pipe organ console, modernized, but retaining vestigial touches of ebony with hand engraved ivory labels—alas!

Thank you for providing me with a few promising leads. Although I don't shave as often as I should—I rarely venture from my house, although that hardly keeps me from wearing colognes even in my cherished solitude—I'm always interested in trying new products and any counterpoint to the pricier English gumbo is welcome.

I've seen the ads and website for Real Shave Company but they appeared too youthful for my quickening codgerdom, but now I'll have to give them a try—earthy interests me, understandably, as does grassy.

"I grow old... I grow old... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare eat a peach?"

[David Weaver]

The RSC is a real puzzler. Putting a good cream in a drug store for cheap. Marking the package like a cheap generic suntan lotion. And putting garbage claims on the container such as "double strength".

What exactly is stuff like that supposed to mean.

But then stuffing the container with a cream that literally lathers into a delightful cushion that also provides a great shave and that does not cling mercilessly to a razor in a greasy slime like art of shaving or some other overpriced corporatized overscented slime...it's just puzzling.

La Toja is another puzzler. It's nearly as good as a cream, but it has this babypowder but slightly more masculine type of scent that leads you to think "i'm not sure about this, maybe it's popular in spain". It does, however, grow on your also.

I'm not sure what to think of Martin De Candre, it is basically a cream that is hard. It lathers fast like a cream, it has sodium hydroxide like a cream, but it is hard. It also has a bizarre scent that is part stinging herb house and part outdoor scent. Some don't like it, I dont mind it. It's different. I would've expected something less masculine from the french, but the makers know just what they're doing. The throngs (those willing to shell out sixty bucks for 150ml of it once it's shipped over here) love the way that it lathers for something with no tallowate in it. Even our crazy friend mr. griggs could use it with no guilt. It has none of the tactlessness of a high glycerine cheap soap, but no converted animal fats either.

But for the stingy, la toja can be had for about 10 bucks or so, and the RSC for 5. The scent will either make you a yes or no type, they are not expensive scents, but they are different, and the "i think someone pulled this scent out of my garden soil" notion you get from the RSC quickly fades, and it's not the part of the scent that lasts several hours after you use it.

The only thing I've really been disappointed with have been art of shaving sandalwood (a fabulous scent but associated with a cream that stuck to a razor like crisco) and the sandalwood cream by proraso, which does not smell like sandalwood should smell, and under it has the hint of the menthol from the regular cream (it's like they made it the same way places make chocolate shakes by adding chocolate to the vanilla shake instead of making a chocolate shake from scratch). Not good!

I'm pretty sure I could get a year from a tub of MDC, a year on from having it and using it once every 8 days has barely made a dent. I also do not wash my brush which puts everyone off, I intentionally do not allow water or lather to reach the knot, only halfway to there, and hang my brush upside down when I'm done. My wife is especially put off by that, but it keeps the brush from ever developing a stink.

Stocked properly, the perfumers organ sounds like a fantastic device.

[David Barnett]

David B - Thanks for that explanation of stropping leather. I had a pair of real cordovan shoes many years ago. Guess I should have saved the leather.

You're most welcome!

I had fun writing it. So much I've enjoyed and I've made over the years has been materials-driven—and most of my work is mixed media, rather expected in goldsmithing. Even my artwork tends toward the mixed—I now mostly work in encaustic and often incorporate other textures and materials in the beeswax-damar medium.

I truly love mixing other materials with wood, as well, such as stone, glass, metals, leather and on and on. For example, I finished another wooden tea chest with twelve compartments, adding sanded (or rather filed) shagreen, aluminum and a top lift of pâte de verre I cast from color-shift rare earth frit. The challenges are not only getting disparate elements fastened together, but keeping things tasteful and balanced and looking like they belong together in spite of the sometimes mandarin salmagundi.