Horse is nice

[DogHair]

Up until last week my only strop had been an Illinois 827 Russian strop. No complaints at all but last week I picked up an older 127 horse hide in excellent condition. We all need more than one strop right? I'm convinced it has improved the sharpness and smoothness of my edges. It could be that the older linen is doing a better job than the linen on the 827 but either way my shaves have been noticeably better over the last 5 days. The draw on the horse hide is very light compared to the Russian I was not really expecting much. Should there be a dramatic difference between strop materials?

[mparker762]

Horsehide typically has a very light draw. With a horsehide strop you need to get the sharpening done on the canvas side of the strop, and just use the horsehide side for final buffing and alignment of the edge.

The old Illinois canvas was much better than the plasticky stuff they're using now, so this may be part of the improvement you're seeing.