I’ve been a fan of real linen and canvas strops for a while. When I found a 45’ fire hose that was marked 100% Flax Fiber I started wondering if I could repurpose some of it – I though to myself - “Hmmmm… that could be a cool project”.
I’ve managed to make up a few extra strops - click here to find them in my Etsy Store!
This next photo shows a small strip of hose that I have cleaned, and sewed. If the ends aren’t sewn, it will unravel; the weave is circular and when it gets wet the ends fray quite badly. This was done with a simple stitch on a machine – it’s not elegant but it works. However – the ends can still fray a bit. For a prototype bench strop though, this works fine.
Here’s the first full prototype fire hose strop. The D-ring was made for me, the width of the hose precludes it from being used with any commercially available rings. The stitching on this piece was done by hand, and because the thread goes over the ends in a loop type of way – the ends are less likely to fray, even with extensive cleaning/soaking. Here - It’s been through the magic cleaning cycle and ironed.
The material is a little springy, and because it’s a hose and not just a thin layer of linen like we find on most ‘production’ strops – the feel is radically different. It’s dense and heavy. The feedback from the razor is amazing. My preliminary tests with this material was very positive; now that it’s hanging ‘normally’ I can really test it out. The next prototype will be more refined. Sewing isn’t a forte of mine and that Frankenstein look will be replaced by Chicago screws.
Here’s another piece of the same hose, but I’ve removed the stitching and fitted the D-rings in place with Chicago rivets.
1/03/2015 - A few fire hose bench strops. I’ll be making more of these for use with abrasive pastes like Chromox, TI white, and my own blend.
1/23/2015
Below is the latest development for the wider Fire Hose - I’ve found some wider leather and fashioned a bolster that allows me to attach a swivel hook to one end. This is a prototype bolster, I’ll be making a template for a ‘finished’ version from this design.
Someone asked me if I really sewed the ends up by hand. To be honest, I think that one look at my stitching tells all. It’s not exactly seamstress-level work but it’s definitely secure. At any rate, I decided to post a few pix to ‘prove’ that I really do everything by hand.
Used a triangle d-ring on this next one - pretty cool look I think.
7/2015 - These pix are from a recent series of tests. The magnification here is pretty high; if you’re viewing on a 19” monitor, it’s about 2000x.
