Thread: just a fast question for you fine gents

I know that the selective and zeepk razors are nothing but trash and I am ok with that. My question is are the strops and stones any good? You see them on ebay all the time and not that I want the razor but if you can pick up a strop for pasting pretty cheap would it be worth it? Thank you all for the answers in advance.

Heres a fast answer, their strops and stones are probably as good as their razors.

You can also put paste on newspaper, and that's probably worth more than the Zeepk strop.

Thats kinda what I thought but it never hurts to ask before you invest the money the painful part is investing first then asking and I have already done that once will not do it again.

Take a look at the Wiki for the pasting tutorial. If you haven't gotten a strop yet check out Tony Miller's Heirloom Strop Co in the vendors section. He has an apprentice strop that is reasonable. If you want to spend a bit more on a strop for paste the new felt strop that Straight Razor Designs is carrying is bad to the bone. A flat bed strop for paste might be a good idea though if you are not experienced with stropping. I have no experience with the Selective or Zepek stuff.

I have seen one zeepk strop up close and it had a regular leather that was very stiff and dry and a plastic feeling sneaker leather that was good for nothing. The hardware was cheap and the quality very poor. I was able to help the member who bought it salvage the leather to use as a strop. It required hand buffing for several hours with 600 + grit sandpaper and some oiling IIRC. Not worth it IMHO.

BUY A TONY MILLER APPRENTICE STROP!

It is extremely reasonably priced, and the quality is unsurpassed for a simple, yet totally effective and well crafted strop.

I screwed around trying to find a "cheap" alternative. For ~$10 more I got a Tony Miller and that put an end to that!

Let me repeat:
BUY A TONY MILLER APPRENTICE STROP!

Just wanted to make sure you heard me!

I'll second the above post. I just started with straight razors (in fact last night was my second shave) and did a lot of research on different strops available. No other strops came as highly recommended or well priced as Tony's. And, his customer service is great!

I went to tony millers website and he is out of the apprentice till after the new year but I will be contacting him to get some stuff I saw a lot of things on his website that got my attention.

Do you have a Tandy Leather store anywhere remotely near you? Tandy sells strips that are a perfect width for strops in both red latigo and plain cowhide.

The Tandy store about 1 1/2 hours away from me is beyond helpful. They're more than willing to let a person use tools, punches, etc. If you DO have one near you, you'd probably walk out of there with a single grommet strop or two you'd make yourself. Just a thought from a major DIY guy.

Chris L