A strop is a grument or rope ring. The two players kneel down facing each other, the strop is placed over their heads, and the men then try to pull each other over by the strength of their neck-muscles.
The final edge finishing typically done with some form of leather (or other soft cloth material). Similar to what is widely known as buffing. This process is used to generate a sharper edge by smoothing out or removing the finest grinding burr left along a cutting edge.