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Entrepreneur Creates Truly Portable Stropping Solution

April 1, 2021

Would you like to be able to touch up your favorite knife’s edge anywhere, anytime? Of course you would, and now you can: KnivesShipFree is stepping into a new market this week with the release of the Strop Shoes, which provide a 100% portable edge maintenance solution for knife users, by putting them on your shoes.

Stropping is one of the most important parts of knife maintenance. But until now, there weren’t any stropping solutions that fit into the go-go lifestyle of the 21st century knife user. Knives, pens, and flashlights are all beautifully portable; however, if you wanted to carry your favorite strop with you, you really only had two options: you could use it as a belt replacement (a big fashion no-no), or as a headband (itchy/painful). Solid, ‘block-style’ strops are even less portable, with dimensions and weight similar to Nokia cellphones from the 90s.

“The knife community was in desperate need of a truly EDCable strop,” says J Rouch, the mind behind the Strop Shoes. “The big challenge was finding a way to create a useful strop without shoehorning in the portable aspect.” One day, the perfect solution presented itself: “What’s something that almost everybody EDCs every day?” Rouch asks. “Shoes, that’s what.”

KSF went to great lengths to ensure the Strop Shoes were made with 100% real shoes – no artificial footwear substitutes here

Using a proprietary, time-intensive technique, Rouch and his team slathered stropping compound onto the toe area of a pair of loafers: 3000-grit black compound on the right loafer, and 6000-grit green compound on the left. “This way you can walk your edge all the way up to hair-popping sharp again, wherever you are,” Rouch explains.

And the Strop Shoes don’t just make your knife sharper, either: they are the only way to grace your edge with KSF’s True UltraPolish finish. True UltraPolish makes your cutting bevel so reflective that it registers on a flashlight lumens scales when it catches direct sunlight. “We toed the line between ‘bright’ and ‘too bright’ here, but I think we managed to stay on the right side,” quips Rouch.

A Sebenza impresses with a True UltraPolish hi-CRI finish

Currently, the Strop Shoes are rarer than most custom knives, limited to just a single pair for one lucky customer with $4000 burning a hole in their pocket. But Rouch tells us that KSF may give you another crack at them someday. “Given the demand we’re already seeing for these bad boys, they’re a shoo-in for a second run in the future.”

Featured Image: KnivesShipFree Strop Shoes

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