Home-made "Linen" Strop. (W/ pics)

Not sure what you guys'll make of this but today's saturday afternoon project was to make my own canvas strop. It turned out pretty well, except I just shipped my new razor off so I don't have anything to try on except an unhoned junker.

Here's a little photo spread to show my process. Let me know any way you may see to improve this....

I started at my local fabric store (Farbic Land in this case) and pestered the poor salesgirl 'till she took me to some 10.5 oz twill cotton canvas.. Looked right, felt right... BWTHDIK?.... got a meter at $13 and some heat activated glue stuff in a sheet for $6

I took apart my vintage Barber's Special "Scorcher" and used it as a guide to cut my canvas a little longer and about 5x the width (for extra). I carefully folded the canvas to just a tiny bit smaller in width, and again, carefully, ironed a crease into it

I proceeded to do this again and again until I had 4 layers. I left a little slack by keeping succeeding layer "loose" in the inside corner to give it a little room to bend to keep it from bulking up. Then I did it a fifth time, just to get a mark to trim to.

I unfolded it after it cooled and used a straight edge to trim my fifth crease just a little inside the roll of the crease. Then I unfolded the whole thing and re-folded it so the cut edges were folded inside leaving just the one edge with two creases and the other edge with just one crease.

I trimmed a piece of that fabric glue to fit with a little extra and used to iron to set it in place on one side. Then I trimmed it very carefully and ironed it down onto the other side. Let it cool and PRESTO instant canvas strop. I punched a hole in it and remounted it with my old leather strop and, boy it looks pretty sweet. It has no handle yet but the extra length seems to substitute well. Suggestions?

Does it work? I have no idea! It seemed to work on my unhoned junker/practice blade but by every means it sure seemed pretty good (note my extreme noobness) It seemed to be very smooth, with no strange wobbles or bumps, no extra thickness and made a neat "whisking" sound.

I think it will work, but I've never even seen with my own eyes a linen strop let alone even used one .... yet.... Total investment: about 1 hour and $19.00, and I have enough for 5 or 6 more attempts if this one fails. BTW are linen strops sewn or stitched along their length? How many layers thick are they, assuming it's more than oneIf any one could point me to some detailed photos of a linen strop I'd sure appreciate it.
BTW in the spirit of PIF if there are a couple of newbies in need of an economical (read: free) canvas strop and don't mind being a guinea pig, I'd be glad to make one and send it to you for the cost of postage.

My vintage canvas is (I believe) a length of firehose-like material. (So it has no seam it's like a canvas tube that's been flattened).

My new Canvas is some kind of Rigid nylon-esque synthetic that is a single sheet and very rigid on it's own.

Wow, that looks really nice!

Of the fabric strops I have none are made of multiple layers, just a thick piece of fabric. I have three canvas, a hard wool felt and a "seat belt",. These are from TM, RupRazor, Hand American and SRD.

I see no reason why your method of multi-layers should not be at least as good. From the pictures it sure looks like you did a very precise and tidy job of folding and ironing the multiple layers.

I really think you probably have about as good a fabric strop as can be had.

Thanks! I originally got into this to save money.... And a round of AD's with delayed gratification is driving both me and SWMBO nuts. Shipping and duty and shipping times to Canada are a real PITB... and I figured that there is a certain amount of hoi poloi involved in this shaving accesory thing.... Do I really need a TM strop? 'probly not, at least not yet. Our grandparents probably made their own strops from last year's steer hide... who knows, but if it works....
If not, I've still got a cheapy strop coming in the mail and I can always make more. By the time I've outgrown that one, maybe then I'll be ready for a TM!

BTW I've got one 3" x 24" "blank" if anyone is interested in it. I'd be interested to find out how well it actually functions.
Cheers!

How has this worked for you? I want to try the same thing but only if yours has held up well.

Vintage linen strops, as said above were often made of tubular fire hose like material. Modern ones seem to most often be like webbing material.

The linen strop I use is a tube, but wider (3") flax cotton (linen), fairly soft but very thick material with no stretch.



Before I had this one I used something very similar to yours, except mine was a linen/cotton blend, folded like you did (except if you fold the outside edges to the middle, and then fold that in half, the cut edges are neatly contained inside the strop) and then stitched into a loop around two D rings. You just kept the seam at the back and it works fine, and was very easy to make.

Legion, where is that top strop from? Very nice!

Thanks. Made it.

Wow! That's a stunner! Looks like some high-end British outfit made it!

Where did you get the tube fabric?

High end British? Pfft! A high end Australian outfit made it! 001_tongu just kidding, my pommy mates.)

Got a sample length given to me by a guy here in Aus, just to test. I'm trying to get a little more because it is really good.

DOH!

Did not look at your location. Sorry, mate!

That's OK. The Australian/British rivalry is mainly limited to the cricket pitch. And sometimes rugby.

Nice job. I couldn't understand what you were doing in the description. Then I saw in the photos. I use a single layer canvas strop layed on a hard surface as multi-layers enhance convexing at the edge. Possum

legion said:

High end British? Pfft! A high end Australian outfit made it! 001_tongu just kidding, my pommy mates.)

Got a sample length given to me by a guy here in Aus, just to test. I'm trying to get a little more because it is really good.

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What is it ordinarily used for?

I have been looking as I want to make a strop formyself, I found a nice source for the leather, but I want some linen like that?

I'm not 100% sure, to tell you the truth. He did say it was genuine flax fiber. He was a bit cagey, but he wants me to buy it off him instead of somewhere else, so I understand that. I just don't want to have to buy a massive roll of the stuff.

legion said:

The Australian/British rivalry is mainly limited to the cricket pitch. And sometimes rugby

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You guys have a rivalry over the pitch of the cricket sound, the other side of the world is nuts