An old leather belt will do just fine.
There is nothing magical about the leather used in strops. The only thing you do when you hone a blade on a strop is remove the fine burrs left from sharpening.
I use many different pieces of leather left over from making knife sheaths, left over leather from Brownell's Latigo slings, whatever is available. They all put an edge on a blade.
Also, there is no need for paying good money for strop dressing. Just use the leather as is, dry. I have used however, some rouge I bought from Garrett-Wade that seems to work. It has a fine abrasive in it. But, strop dressing without some fine abrasive in it hinders the ability of leather to do it's job in removing burrs. It's like a wax that allows the blade to slide over the leather without doing as much burr removal as the leather would without out it.
Martyn
