Razor strop

Common card · No. 263852

A razor strop or simply a strop (sometimes called a razor strap or strap) is a flexible strip of leather, canvas, denim fabric, balsa wood, or other soft material, used to straighten and polish the blade of a straight razor, a knife, or a woodworking tool such as a chisel. In many cases stropping re-aligns parts of the blade edge that have been bent out of alignment. In other cases, especially when an abrasive polishing compound is used, stropping may remove a small amount of metal (functionally equivalent to lapping). Stropping can also burnish (i.e., push metal around on) the blade. The strop may be a hanging strop, a block (placed on a table, or in ones hand), or a hand-held paddle. Various abrasive compounds may be applied to the strop to aid in polishing the blade while stropping to obtain a mirror-like finish. Common abrasive compounds include diamonds, chromium(III) oxide, aluminum oxide, and iron(III) oxide.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Dr.K. 15:35, 4 November 2007 (UTC), CC BY-SA 3.0