So these are a few of the vintage strops I purchased when I was figuring out how to make strops. I got these as non usable display pieces price wise. My original thought was to pirate the hardware off them to make new strops. I still might do that for the one with no leather on it. Top one is heavily pasted canvas, with no leather left. Middle one is Shell Cordovan, with a couple of nicks on the right side. Bottom one was listed as having "a few nicks and cuts" on it by the seller. Its also the one I restored.
So on this strop, the leather was machine sewn to the canvas at the top with very light thread, and riveted to the leather at the bottom to make a loop. I cut the thread at the top, and tried to remove the rivets at the bottom. When they came out they tore the canvas bad enough that I just cut the canvas right above them. In addition to "a few nicks and cuts" this leather was also so dry it would not have been savable anyways. I dug through my scrap bin and found a piece of horsehide. It was in the scrap bin because it had a bit of loose grain, so I would not have been able to make a strop for sale out of it, so I decided to experiment. After I rounded and burnished the edges, I wet the leather, and worked saddle soap into both sides. Then I glassed the leather. This is done with leather carving to firm up and compact the grain, to make the carving crisper. In this case, I wanted to see if it would make for an even stropping surface. Rather than doing any sewing, I attached the leather with copper rivets. I also replaced the shoelace hanging strap.
Nice restoration, I have an old horsehide strop that somebody gave me, the stitching was coming apart but the hide was still usable,I managed to use a domestic sewing machine with a leather needle and going very slowly managed to re stitch it, I treated it with a little neatsfoot oil, and now I reckon it will last a good few more years!!
