From my humble beginnings, my mission has never been simply to succeed, but to exceed on all and any pre conceived limitations.
Guided by natural design instinct, endless prototyping and uncompromising workmanship., I set out to produce more than premium tools - I strove to create a uniquely personal experience, and succeeded.
Driven by relentless dedication, combined with results based decision making has led to a highly selective choice of advanced materials with relentless commitment to craftsmanship, every tool is hand-made and engineered without compromise. Together this has led to products of exceptional quality, durability, outstanding performance.
These traits are no coincidence - they are the unwavering focus to top-tier quality and workmanship - Every detail is meticulously executed with surgical precision and refined finesse, engineered to exceed the most demanding standards.
I remain absolutely committed to the end user's expectations and experience. Selectively exacting in every aspect - constantly pushing to make high functioning, superior built tools, engineered to give the ultimate in edge maintenance tools that produce exceptional results that are built for a lifetime of hard use. Ultimately excelling, achieving premium products of uncompromising quality.
I embarked on this journey chasing the ultimate edge maintinance tools demanding nothing but perfection and outcomes that exceed all expectations.
Ultimately, I selected two highly specific and specialised materials that met the most rigorous standards - purpose-driven choices that are as unique as they are functional. The products final form is result driven, combining both precision and end user demands.
Every strop is crafted with a singular goal: delivering unmatched performance.
Achieving this starts with a clean cut of naturally finished Kangaroo leather, every skin meticulously selected and individually vetted for its fine, consistent, and superior surface finish. This leather is then mounted onto a singular, hard, lightweight, precision CNC-cut piece of polycarbonate.
Polycarbonate also known as Acrylic and is essentially a rigid thermoplastic, that is naturally lightweight, dimensionally stable, non pourous, is completely flat and will not warp.
Combined they create a remarkably, unique stropping sensation, being light in hand, yet giving you a confident firm and stable feel. Their hard base mimics the familiar, stable support of a sharpening stone, while maintaining the expected results of leather.
The end result?
A more confident, controlled stropping experience that feels unlike anything else on the market.
My choice to use such a thin cut of Kangaroo leather is absolutely intentional. While some may assume thicker leather is better, the truth is that a thinner, high-quality cut of leather actually improves performance, ease of use and end results.
Kangroo leather is so effective due to it's unique properties.
It's renound for its fine, and tightly woven flesh fibers along with its abundance of natural abrasive silicates.
For those unfamiliar, kangaroo leather is a highly sustainable material sourced from Australia’s well-managed populations, where regulated culling supports well established environmental practices.
Its performance is driven by a fine, tightly woven, and highly uniform, fibrous construction combined with inherently occurring abrasive silicate producing performance advantages of a highly concentrated, naturally occurring abrasive allowing it to perform exceptionally well even in its untreated, bare state.
Structurally, kangaroo leather is lightweight, dimensionally stable, and highly resistant to deformation under pressure. this greatly minimises the potential of any surface “wave” effect common in thicker leathers like cowhide, where surface malleability can cause the material to roll up and over the apex dulling the edge.
Another major advantage of Kangaroo leather is how good a substrate it is.
It's not only an exceptional leather to strop with bare, but also it's surprising how effortlessly it accepts and preforms with any abrasive compound, paste or emulsion you choose to charge it with.
Its incredibly compatible with stropping abrasives and the results you can obtain from the combination of the two is phenomenal.
All these qualities combined make for - faster drying times, less abrasive waste, and a smoother, more uniform application.
Testing across a rane of stainless and tool steels showed excellent results at burr removal and effective realignment of your apex, with consistent, optimum performance - particularly notable when combined with a quality diamond emulsion, then pairing it with an inherently firm, completely flat base like that found in polycarbonate.
Another major advantage in my choice of Kangaroo leather is how good a substrate it is. It's not only an exceptional leather to strop with bare, but also it's surprising how effortlessly it accepts any compound, paste or emulsion. Its compatible with all stropping abrasives and the results you can obtain from the combination of the two is phenomenal.
Thanks to it's fine, tightly packed structure, they require only a small amount of your chosen cutting compound to evenly coat them.
Holding any abrasive in its fine fibers remarkably well, without soaking in exsessive ammounts, like much more pourous cowhide leather can - leading to saturation and clogging of the fibers and pours of the leather surface, leaving it stiff and hard once dry.
All these qualities combined makes for faster drying times, less abrasive waste, and a smoother, more uniform application.
This matters especially for those using high-end abrasives, like Mono-crystalline or Poly-crystalline diamond or CBN emulsions.
This translates to reliable performance and tangible real-world savings.
In short, these properties makes SSC. strops exceptionally easy to apply abrasives to and highly cost-effective.
Studies have shown that in precise cutting, unpolished bevels create friction during cuts, reducing both accuracy and overall cut quality.
From testing it was found a higher polished edge glides more smoothly and holds its keenness longer.
This study was able to show that premium, wear-resistant knife steels - often referred to as "Super Steels" simply don’t perform at their best with an unpolished edge.
Also, it was found that when refining an edge, there’s an approximate 1:10 ratio between the abrasives grit size and the resulting scratch depth.
For example, honing or stropping with a 0.5 micron abrasive produces scratches around 0.05 micron in depth.
Fine abrasives don’t make an edge sharper as such, but they improve edge retention and cutting feedback by removing stressed metal left behind by coarser grindings.
Lastly, it was cited that leather can only hold diamond or CBN abrasives up to approximately 5-6 microns in partical size; larger particles can potentially be lost or shed while stropping and that leather works very well with aluminium oxide/chromium oxide bars, diamond/CBN pastes and considerably better with diamond and CBN emulsions/suspensions.
* Study Cited- Knife De-Burring book-
6th edtion, by Dr. Vadim Kraichu.
Each Southern Strop Co. strop is made with carful intention, dialed in precision, and a deep respect for the sharpening process and its inherent nuances.
Whether you’re just starting out on your sharpening journey or a well honed, seasoned professional - my goal is to give you the highest quality tools available to get the best possible results, first time, every time.
Thank you for supporting my meticulously designed, high-performance, handcrafted tools, all proudly made right here in regional Victoria, Australia.
Trading since 2025.
– Steve Robilliard
Founder, Southern Strop Co.
