Building an inexpensive paddle strop quickly
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Background
There are several styles of really beautiful paddle strops available at vendor sites, however they tend to be a little expensive. I wanted to experiment with several different stropping pastes, so I decided to make a set of my own paddles based on a very quick and easy design. Mine came out to less than $5 each, and I was able to build them in a day with just a few tools (a saw and a knife).
Building the strop
This is what you get. It isn't fancy but it works like a champ, so don't laugh. It features a 16-inch long light, wooden paddle and a 1.5-inch by 11-inch leather stropping surface. That is generous compared to many commercial travel-style paddle strops.
The secret for making this easy is to find leather strips and wood paddle stock that is already at the proper width. Here are some possible material for 1.5-inch wide wood paddles. The top piece is a paint stirring stick available for free at paint shops. The middle piece is a heavy-duty yardstick available for 60 cents each at HomeDepot. The bottom piece is a poplar trim strip available for about $3. These are all about 1/4 inch thick except the trim strip was a little thicker.
A look at the end grain. Top to bottom is the paint stick, the yardstick, and the poplar trim strip. The yardstick has a nice, tight grain pattern and looks quarter-sawn. Thus, it should be less likely to warp than the other two and give a nice stable surface for mounting the leather. This yardstick is much heavier than typical ones. Also, I sorted through the barrel to find the ones with the best end-grain.
Also, these yardsticks seemed to have a thin wash coat finish. It isn't much but it is better than nothing, and I didn't want to get into painting or varnishing these puppies. The numbers and hash marks on the yardsticks are ingraved or pressed into the wood, but that did not seem to bother the leather surface when it was applied.
I put a more standard style yardstick into some of the photos so you can see the comparison with the one I used from HomeDepot. A standard style yardstick is too wimpy in my opinion.
The leather is a 1.5-inch by 72-inch cowhide strip from Tandy. This cost me about $16 on sale. Mark the leather into 11-inch pieces and cut with a sharp knife. Cut the yardsticks into 16-inch pieces with a saw.
This cowhide leather seems nice and solid. Tandy has latigo leather strips in the same size for a few dollars more. I chose to avoid the latigo because the pieces I looked at had bumps on the surface that would have required culling about a third of the strip.
This is the contact cement that all the forum guides suggest for paddle strops. It works great. Spread it on both surfaces. Let it dry, and then carefully place the leather onto the paddle in the correct position and squeeze. I didn't need to use clamps. The most likely screw-up in this whole process is getting glue all over eveything. Don't get it on the top side of the leather!
The paddle is 16 inches and the leather is 11 inches, so that gives a 5-inch grip. That worked fine for me.
That's it. Have fun. I did. Watch the video below to see the test flight.
