Horsehide strop leather!

S

stitchawl

Joined
Jul 26, 2008
Messages
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I just received a beautiful piece of Horween leather, straight vegetable tanned, boned (what Horween's calls 'glazed') horsehide. http://horween.com/index.php/main/

I've been in contact with Nick Horween, who put me in contact with a local hide seller here in Japan, who, after consultation with John T. Culliton, Horween's president of Global Solutions, suggested that I use their 'strip' cut of cordavan leather for strops, and sent me one for evaluation.

Absotivly posolutely beautiful!! It feels exactly like my Grandfather's old 'Russian Leather' razor strop! I should be able to cut several good sized hanging stops and a few nice bench strops from the piece they sent. Add a couple of D-rings for hanging, some cowhide for handles, and some wood blocks for the bench strops and Robert's your father's brother!

Needless to say there won't be any compound on these babies! I am one happy camper!

Stitchawl
 
I'm happy for you. I would also like to have a superior leather for stropping, but I still get amazing results with just a regular leather belt or even a newspaper!

Yesterday I sharpened my girlfriend's kitchen knives on the back of a porcelain plate and finished them off on a newspaper — hair-poppin'!
I would LOVE to try out some "Ferrari-leather" and see what results I would get with such a fine leather as the type you've just acquired. Congrats!
 
Oh yeah??...well I'm getting some Rolls Royce seat leather...I'll show you guys!!
 
smegs said:
Nice. Was it expensive?
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Not when you figure that I'll be able to get about half a dozen strops out of the one piece of hide. On the other hand, what the hell do I need with half a dozen strops?

If I sell a few then it will have been really cheap. But unless I can find some local folk to buy them it wouldn't work. The overseas shipping would add in $20-$30 and make it not cost-effective for people outside of Japan to buy them from me.

Fortunately, I didn't buy the leather to save money or try to make a profit. And this was a 'one off' deal. These companies are wholesale suppliers. 'Horween' is the exclusive supplier of leather to the NFL and NBA, as well as several major shoe manufacturers. They don't sell one piece of hide like Tandy does. Mine came from one of their 'middle men' here in Japan (factory rep) who had a sample that he could sell. I just got lucky. :)

Stitchawl
 
stoffi said:
I'm happy for you. I would also like to have a superior leather for stropping, but I still get amazing results with just a regular leather belt or even a newspaper!
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I'm just guessing here, but I'd assume that unless I was using a straight razor for daily shaving, I probably won't notice (in 'my' edc) any real difference between this horsehide and a piece of good quality cowhide. I get tree-topping results with cowhide anyway. This is more akin to telling time with a Rolex watch. Same time telling as on a $10 Timex but a nicer feeling when you look at it. :D

Stitchawl
 
rayban said:
Oh yeah??...well I'm getting some Rolls Royce seat leather...I'll show you guys!!
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LOL! Sorry, Ray... Rolls Royce seat leather is 'chrome' tanned, as is garment leather. For stropping you need 'vegetable' tanned leather. You need to find a nice saddle and cut off its seat! ;)

Stitchawl
 
stitchawl said:
I'm just guessing here, but I'd assume that unless I was using a straight razor for daily shaving, I probably won't notice (in 'my' edc) any real difference between this horsehide and a piece of good quality cowhide. I get tree-topping results with cowhide anyway. This is more akin to telling time with a Rolex watch. Same time telling as on a $10 Timex but a nicer feeling when you look at it. :D

Stitchawl
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I betcha you're right. Can you feel the difference between the horse and cowhide? Is it firmer, more dense?
 
hardheart said:
hm, he never replied to my email :(
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It took him about three weeks to answer mine, and when he did it was just to send me the name and address of a trading company in Tokyo that reps his leather to shoe, sporting goods, and clothing manufacturers here in Japan.

As it happens, the managing director of the Tokyo company collects Japanese Tanto, so is a knife collector himself and sympathetic to the cause. And... coincidentally, he had a spare piece of sample horsehide that he would be able to sell to me. All in all, a series of very lucky breaks for me. Usually this company doesn't sell ONE piece of leather. They deal in hundreds (if not thousands) of hides per week to manufacturers.

Did you see the Horween video that was put here?
( http://vimeo.com/4814754 )
Frankly, I didn't think I'd get any results myself, considering I only wanted such a tiny amount. Some days you get lucky. :)

Stitchawl
 
smegs said:
I betcha you're right. Can you feel the difference between the horse and cowhide? Is it firmer, more dense?
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Oh, absolutely!! Much more dense, with a 'creamy' feeling like thick toffee. It's firmer than any cowhide I have here, more so even than the water buffalo hide I have. In suppleness (is that a word?) it feels more like Elk hide, but at the same time it feels almost bullet proof it's so dense!

Stitchawl
 
Well, it's been five days now since I made my horsehide strops with the Horween's leather. So far I've made two bench strops; 14"x3"x2" and 9"x3"x2" (sizes dictated by most efficient use of the odd shaped leather,) on one hanging strop 16"x4".

All I can say is; "I will never use any other bare leather for stropping than horsehide." You can feel the difference in the very first stroke. It feels as if the hide were covered with thick molasses even though the leather is smooth and bare. You can feel the drag of the blade as you bring it down the leather, and almost visualize teeny tiny little fingers polishing the edge.

I took some knives that "I" thought I had sharpened and stropped well (on cowhide) and gave them 20-30 strokes across the horsehide. The difference was night and day.

In a previous post I said that I didn't expect to be able to feel a difference in knife edges, thinking that only a straight razor shave would demonstrate the difference, but I was wrong. Flat out wrong. There is SUCH an obvious difference in the edges between stropping on good quality cowhide and good quality horsehide! I wish I had realized this difference 40 years ago. (Frankly, I don't know what difference it would have made in my life, but it seems a shame to only have another 10-20 years or so to find out!)

Stitchawl
 
Now that you have found the amazing properties of horse hide for strops, you need to concentrate your search on mule hide for the same purpose. I'm down to my last two strops made of mule hide but they have many miles left in them.

In short if you like horse hide you'll love mule hide.

Paul
 
Who sells mule hide? I had enough trouble trying to find good horsehide, and only did so by getting very, very lucky! I doubt I'd have the same good fortune with mules.

Stitchawl
 
Wow I cant find mule hide well unless I find a mule and a tannery ;). How well do you guys think sheep hide would strop it must be very soft o.O which would probably allow for pretty nice convex edges. On an off topic not http://lilbookbinder.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/leather-identification/
I did some more reading and it sayed that's it's often loose in and only firm at very top so I'm guessing metal build up would be an issue.
This may be a source for horse butt (Not strip) http://cgi.ebay.com/Decorative-Leat...tive_Pillows?hash=item3597d8acf1#ht_500wt_975
 
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Sheepskin is much softer than either cow or horse hide. Its cell structure is larger. If you look at a cross section of sheepskin with a magnifying lens the it looks like a sponge. If you look at cowhide it looks as if the cells are much smaller. Looking at horsehide with the same magnifier makes it look almost solid. No air spaces.

I have a large sheepskin throw as a cover for my motorcycle seats. Verrry soft, and I believe chrome tanned so that it will stand up to the weather. While I 'might' try to use this with compound for stropping a convex edge, I don't see it being any more effective than a KitchenMaid sponge! I'd keep my sheepskin for clothes, writing stuff like the "Magna Carta," university diplomas, and pirate maps. :)

Just guessing here, but I'd think that those pillows with the horse's butt on them are not 'made' from horsehide. I think it's just a picture of a horse's butt painted on leather with a tail stuck on it. I think a horsehide pillow would be about as comfortable for my head as a bowling ball bag... Imagine a pillow made from your stropping leather and double it!

Stitchawl
 
stitchawl said:
Sheepskin is much softer than either cow or horse hide. Its cell structure is larger. If you look at a cross section of sheepskin with a magnifying lens the it looks like a sponge. If you look at cowhide it looks as if the cells are much smaller. Looking at horsehide with the same magnifier makes it look almost solid. No air spaces.

I have a large sheepskin throw as a cover for my motorcycle seats. Verrry soft, and I believe chrome tanned so that it will stand up to the weather. While I 'might' try to use this with compound for stropping a convex edge, I don't see it being any more effective than a KitchenMaid sponge! I'd keep my sheepskin for clothes, writing stuff like the "Magna Carta," university diplomas, and pirate maps. :)

Just guessing here, but I'd think that those pillows with the horse's butt on them are not 'made' from horsehide. I think it's just a picture of a horse's butt painted on leather with a tail stuck on it. I think a horsehide pillow would be about as comfortable for my head as a bowling ball bag... Imagine a pillow made from your stropping leather and double it!

Stitchawl
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Read down on the ebay article it says it's made with Genuine leather (I think it mentions Horse Hide).
 
Is anyone here familar with the process whereby "Russian Red" leather is made for barber strops?????:confused::confused:
 
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