Beautiful and interesting strops are something that has been on my agenda for a long time, with so many types of animals and exciting new natural and synthetic materials out there it is unlikely that the holy grail of stropping has been discovered as yet. One only has to look at the humble bovine or cow's leather, most strops are simply marketed as such, while in reality skin thicknesses and properties vary a lot, smoothness, texture, thickness, and age of the animal it was harvested from. I think it is also safe to assume genetical, cellular, and physical properties all come into play when a you drag your metal over hide. Leather in general works very well for stropping, there is no doubt about it, but finding 'the perfect' strop can be like finding a needle in a haystack!
When you start reading up on strops and what they do you get a deeper understanding of their function and abilities, but when you start to investigate exactly how this happens at microscopic/grain level, you quickly realize that there is very little information out there, there are quite a few discussions and theories on the forums, but hardly any are backed up by conclusive evidence or facts. It is mostly the top layer properties of the leather (outer skin side) that will determine what it does in terms of alighnment, burnishing and abrasion of your razor, and with very little factual information out there we thought it best is to create some strops, send them out into the world and let them build or break their own reputation.
This sealskin strop has a sturdy, tight and firm grain pattern, the corium has quite a fine, compact fibre composition as well. The leather has lots of natural valleys, but no ridges which would make it unsuitable for stropping a fine edge, the appearance of this leather is certainly beautiful, unique and full of character, identifying a genuine sealskin strop will not be hard to do at all! Stropping on this softer leather is easy and comfortable, angling the razor to have the entire bevel meet up with the surface is similarly easy, even more so than most other strops of a similar thickness. The strop has a light draw and making a full hollow 6/8 razor sing it's 'swish-swash song' is easy as pie. The leather is just over 3 mm thick and flexible enough to roll and fold with out damaging or cracking the stropping surface.
This strop is made in our 'Budget version', many folks have asked us for something cheaper and more basic, so here it is. It is made in user friendly dimensions; about 600 mm long with a stropping surface that is around 480 mm long and 75 mm wide, enough to cover the blade length of most razors out there.
The strop has basic finishes and is rivited with two D-rings at either end to keep costs down.
These strops will appeal to many because of their popular size and choice of appearance, something that is particularly interesting about them is the way they reflect the sun, look closely when you move it around, like billions of little stars blinking at you.
We have a few more ideas in this range, so please provide feedback to help us offer some more items just the way you like them.