Cotton Strop for pasting.

I've been considering a making a cotton strop for use with crox paste for sharpening. I have been following the "Fire Hose Linen" thread with some interest and noted that it has been described as "thick" and appears to be quite coarse with a distinct raised pattern rather than being smooth.

I found this webbing, which is described as " NATURAL WHITE COTTON WEBBING BUNTING TAPE", and "These are strong tape, durable and washable. No man made fibers/Artificial Material. Its all Natural Tape".



It is listed as available in 75mm width but appeared a little coarse to me until I read the Fire Hose thread. The listing doesn't state a thickness - just how thick does such webbing need to be?

Has anyone used this type of webbing. or have any comments on its possibilities?

Cheers, George

That looks like it will work just fine, but for a pasted strop you can use stuff you can source free. Old seat belt material, strip of denim from and old beat up pair of jeans. The materiel your looking at certainly looks like it would give a more professional looking strop, but if you want to try it on the cheap there are alternatives.

Also "Boy Scout" type belts go in thrift shops really cheap and are long enough for two strops, I was concerned about coarse weaves beating up the edge at first, but it turned out not to be a problem. You can easily 'break in' a coarse weave by running it back and forth over a sharp corner if it bothers you.

They're selling 10 metres of the 75mm webbing for around $US24 with post from the UK to Australia around $US5, and say that they will supply other lengths if requested. Three metres for $12.50 delivered seems like a good deal to me.

Cheers, George

I have some very heavy cotton webbing, works fine.
I have used very thin webbing - worked fine.
I prefer the heavy stuff for the feel and lack of 'give' - but I think anything will work if you work it right.
I am going to make a pasted strop with the fire hose eventually. A small bench size piece though, not a hanging type.

The cotton belt I bought was 50 cents.

Gamma said:

I have some very heavy cotton webbing, works fine.
I have used very thin webbing - worked fine.
I prefer the heavy stuff for the feel and lack of 'give' - but I think anything will work if you work it right.
I am going to make a pasted strop with the fire hose eventually. A small bench size piece though, not a hanging type.

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I'm very interested in this concept. If I could impose (further) on your generosity, I'd love any details or ideas you wouldn't mind sharing.
My plan was to put some felt under some webbing (or inside the hose) to make a "padded" strop.
If under webbing, maybe use rubber cement to assemble so no stiff glues?

I use webbing on a piece of wood sometimes - usually, that's when I'm testing an abrasive and how it acts on the same substrate but with/without the 'flex' one gets with a hanging strop. Padding, depending on how much 'cush' it has, will put the effect somewhere in the middle of the hanger and the wood-backed version.
All I can determine from my very unscientific testing in this arena, is this; barring any possible convexing from the hanging or softly padded style, the abrasive acts basically the same on all three types of strops; the effect is basically the same, but the technique changes. At the very least, the hard-backed linen shows greater efficacy and fewer strokes are needed to get to the same place.

Why then, do I want a non-hanging paste strop? Well - I don't like hanging strops with paste on them, they're messy. I only use them for testing abrasives, so my needs aren't all that great. You'd laugh if you saw the one in my bathroom right now; it's a piece of black 2" webbing with my mix slathered on it lying on top of a dirty old piece of walnut that's a bit wider than the piece of hose. It's not atached or anything, the webbing is just sitting there loose - I hold in place with my thumb when I'm using it. Sort of laughable in a way.

But - the fire hose idea I have has a premise that goes a bit beyond just testing abrasives. I might fit up a travel set. Might even be better than a barber hone.


Check the Fire Hose strop thread in a few minutes.

Depends on the paste involved. For crox and ferox, I prefer a sanded hanging leather strop, followed by a slackened loom strop. For T-I diamond/alox, I prefer suede on a stiff paddle. Not had much luck with pastes on a cotton strop, apart from charging things with soap and talcum powder.

I think it depends more on one's personal preferences, experience and abilities. I've used paste on a plastic sheet and it worked fine.

For diamond spray - I found that, heavily napped leather works better than anything for me, including sueded leather. The black side of the wide TI paddle comes to mind.
At the same time, I find that simple pastes, waxy or semi-liquid types, Dovo, Ti, my own mix, etc - all work better for me on the cotton webbing I have.
The fire hose, thus far - seems to be ideal for pastes. One brief test on a semi-clean patch was impressive.
But before I go tooting that horn, I want to fit one up for proper testing and have at it.

I speak from personal experience, for what it's worth. T-I paste on a Solingen cotton strop, as sometimes recommended, does not hold up so well in my opinion. T-I paste on suede is the way. Vegetable-tanned pieces of belting, sanded with know-how born from example and then pasted with the red and black ferox powders, or smaller loom strop pieces rubbed over with the Soligen crayons, work great. Fire hose, the fire hose sold with the old barber strops, may benefit from talcum powder and a water spritz. Yeah, I guess you can rub the crayon over these as well, as I've received pieces of the fire hose linen, the fire hose linen that came with the barber's strops, lined with some sort of greasy crayon. Did it serve as an aide in sharpening or to fill the surface interstices? Those on a roll, the actual linen fire hose, rubber lined or not, have always seemed coarser from what I can tell. Either the old barber's strop makers were using earlier "old stock," or the name "fire hose" as used was out of tradition.

Many months back, I received a cotton strop from Torolf at Scrupleworks. He recommended the linen instead, but I did not like the way it gave at the end with square points. So I went with the stiffer cotton piece. Sure enough, it was pretty rugged. So I rubbed it over with a piece of sheep's milk soap to even out things, and it has served me well since. Here we're talking 10 laps or so max. before hitting the leather.

Of course your personal experiences are the basis for your opinions, and they're quite valid, but that doesn't turn those opinions into rules or laws for others.
My experiences are the basis for my own opinions, which are equally valid, and while they're quite different than yours; they're not rules or laws for anyone else either.

For me - Ti, as well as all the other simple pastes, on the cotton webbing I'm using now, all work extremely well and hold up just fine; as well as they do on anything else I've used. I do seem to feel that the the efficacy of each paste improves on the webbing but that's nearly impossible to prove.
Honestly - most of all of this is impossible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Anyone would be hard pressed to accurately qualify most of any of these concerns.

Using the pastes on various leathers did not improve anything for me, not in a performance sense anyway.
Leather does looks nicer though. But for my needs here, looks don't factor in much. I just need a simple utilitarian approach that gets me through to the next level of testing.

I would like to offer my thanks for the very informed viewpoints that have emerged on this thread. I've just acquired some Kangaroo hide, and some Kangaroo tail for the purpose of making some paddle strops. The padding question was in my mind as well and I had just about decided against it and I'm now feeling better about that decision having read the comments above. The reverse side of the Kangaroo tails are very rough - are there any suggestions as to grade and type of sandpaper to use?

Coming back on topic, I was thinking of a double hanging cotton strop, but using a wood backing may be an alternative. Gamma, when you're holding one end of the loose webbing on the timber with your thumb and stropping with the other hand, what's holding the other end of the webbing?

Cheers, George

Nothing. Originally I thought about stapling it down but I change out the fabric often.

GBinOZ said:

I would like to offer my thanks for the very informed viewpoints that have emerged on this thread. I've just acquired some Kangaroo hide, and some Kangaroo tail for the purpose of making some paddle strops. The padding question was in my mind as well and I had just about decided against it and I'm now feeling better about that decision having read the comments above. The reverse side of the Kangaroo tails are very rough - are there any suggestions as to grade and type of sandpaper to use?

Coming back on topic, I was thinking of a double hanging cotton strop, but using a wood backing may be an alternative. Gamma, when you're holding one end of the loose webbing on the timber with your thumb and stropping with the other hand, what's holding the other end of the webbing?

Cheers, George

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The leather I have sanded I used a random orbital sander with a vacuum attatched with 220 grit. You can always sand, and vacuum after If that works better.

FWIW I've had better results with the hanging strop (held tight) than the solid paddle, but of course YMMV.