Hutsuls Double Sided Leather Strop Paddle Kit - Get Razor-Sharp Edges, Ergonomic Handle, Quality Honing Leather, and Step-by-Step Guide

The fix I didn't expect. I have a Stainless Steel Dovo Straight Razor with the tiniest of warps . I have fought with it for years. It makes difficult to maintain a proper shaving edge with a traditional hanging strop because of the warp. I gave this a try, and with the little extra pressure you can apply against the hard strop it mitigates that tiny warp and aligns the edge between shaves. It shaves great now.

I was a little surprised at first to find out that a strop could put such a fine edge on a blade until I remembered back 60-70 years when the strop and straight razor were commonplace. It’s a bit of work, to be sure, but a strop still works beautifully, especially with the help of a little strop paste. It’s a must for a slicing knife, filleting knife, butcher knife or chef’s knife. A better and sharper blade makes for less effort, less work.

Great price point not to over done good quality with an amazing price

I'm a knife nerd, I admit it. I hone my knives after every use, but I wanted that smoooooth slicing feeling that you can get with a strop. I use it on my Shun's, Wusthof's and Zwillings religiously!

Nice strop. Works great for my needs. Highly recommend

Excellent product

I am relatively new to knife sharpening. The only thing I knew about sharpening knives was that I had seen a barber in an old western movie sharpening a straight razor with a long leather belt. I searched that and found out it was called a "strop". In the past few months I have spent countless hours on YouTube learning knife sharpening. To understand what a leather strop does and when it is used you need an overview of knife sharpening. A knife starts out as a dull thin piece of metal with an edge that won't cut. You rub the knife forwards towards the blade edge on each side on a sharpening stone to create a thinner angled edge called an 'apex'. Sharpening stones come in grit ratings, the higher the number the finer the grit, kind of like sandpaper. Grits of 400 to 1000 are used to remove metal from the knife edge to create an apex capable of cutting. Next, stones with grits of 1000 and above are used to narrow the apex creating a smoother and sharper edge. You rub the knife backwards away from the blade edge to sharpen the edge so it cuts better. You move from 1000 grit to higher grits in stages, like 3000 grit and then 8000 grit. You have to do it in stages because it would take too long if you skip a step. For example, if you skipped 1000 and went straight to 3000, instead of taking 3 minutes to sharpen the edge, it would take 30 to 40 minutes because it removes that much less material. So you can get knives really sharp really fast if you work in stages using successively higher grit stones. At each stage the scratches on the surface of the metal are getting finer and the cutting edge is getting thinner. When you get to the end of that process with the sharpening stones, you move to a leather strop, which you also use backwards, rubbing away from the knife edge, on both sides. The strop polishes the metal and smooths out rough spots on the edge, turning it from a sharp blade into a razor blade. You start with the harder side of the leather strop. Then you turn it over and use the softer side. No matter what your highest grit sharpening stone is, the leather strop will make your knife significantly sharper. When you use your knife it will become progressively less sharp. And to restore the sharpness, you can use the leather strop. So the strop is used to finish any sharpening job and it is also used to maintain the sharpness of your knives. If you use the strop after every time you use your knife, you will double or triple the length of time you can use the knife before needing to sharpen it with sharpening stones again. I experimented with a raw leather belt. That helped me understand how important a leather strop is to knife sharpening. But it didn't work very well. Some parts were sharper and some were not. And that is what led me to purchase the Hutsuls leather strop. The Hutsuls leather strop has harder leather and softer leather attached to each side of a wooden plank with handle. This makes it easy to get a nice even draw across the knife edge which makes the knife evenly sharp. Conveniently flipping it over to the softer leather side makes it easy to complete the sharpening process and get the sharpest razor edge. I like my Hutsuls leather strop. I use it as the last stage in sharpening all of my knives. And I use it daily to maintain the sharpness of the knives I use the most. As far as I am concerned, the Hutsuls is a great product. And I consider it to be a critical element for sharpening and maintaining knives. I'm not sure why anyone would even own knives without also having a Hutsuls leather strop. I can't believe I only learned about it recently.

You talk about getting something razor sharp! Great addition to the sharpening cabinet!