2x72 Leather Stropping Belt

JRB Blades

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Jul 22, 2013
Messages
266
Just picked up the Ameribrade knife sharpening kit along with a leather stropping belt. They sent some Neatsfoot oil and some green compound.

Which of these do I use? Both?

I'm not familiar with stropping on my 2x72. I normally use my wicked edge to sharpen and strop.

I'm guessing I use the smooth side of the leather belt to apply either the compound or the neatsfoot oil?

Thanks
 
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Not sure about the oil. Apply compound to the smooth side, run slow, light pressure, all you're doing here is removing the bur from the apex.
 
I stopped running my leather belt, really no need for that speed.
I will mount it on the grinder ,not turned on, and use it as a strop
 
You lightly oil te belt and apply the compound.
Run it SLOW. As Adam said, you can even use it as a slack strop. The main thing is the blade needs to be sharp before you buff off the wire and polish the micro-bevel.
 
Here, if the knife won't shave hair, it's not ready to strop.

I take the burr off, edge leading on an oil stone. The strop doesn't have a lot of work to do.

I dislike using buffing compound on a strop. It's waxy and glaze. I used to get good results using a chromium oxide strop schmoo from Hall handmade But I think he stopped producing it. It was nice because it wasn't wax or oil base.

I make my own diamond schmoo now. Diamond works well on higher vanadium carbide content because it doesn't just erode the surrounding matrix, it could actually cut the carbide too.

I get good results spraying it on (with isopropyl alcohol so it evaporates quickly) rather than wiping and smearing. It almost forms its own structured abrasive I think. Works quickly.

I run my four-pole motor at 9 Hertz to strop.
 
The reason to use oil and hard compound (or powder) is that it makes a paste (Shmoo). It should be almost nothing on the strop ... just the lightest coat.
I have to say that I never used neatsfoot oil, though. I use a silicone oil that is used as a diamond compound extender in polishing. I am sure regular honing/stropping oil would work fine, too. Neatsfoot is probably fine, just that I have no experience with it.
 
I have a precious bottle of green chrome stropping compound I got from a wood carver's supply years ago. It's precious because it's not in oil, but detergent. And it sticks great to leather.
Unable to find it again anywhere, I bought green rouge dry off Amazon and am experimenting with good old dish soap as the liquid. Seems to work great to load my strop.
 
The compound isn't a hard brick type compound. Its more of a paste. That's why I was confused about the oil. Should just be able to rub the paste on the leather. That's what I do to my Wicked Edge strops anyway.
 
Paste is good. The oil is the extender. It makes the paste thinner, spread easier, and go farther.

When using diamond paste in cutting gemstones, you put small dots of te paste all along the belt or lap. Then you apply dots of oil. You run the bl=elt/disc and spread the paste and oil with your finger. More oil is added occasionally, but you rarely need more paste for a long time.
 
A lot of old leather guys put the compound on the other side of the leather. Seems to hold better. Honestly, most guys have switched from strops to buffers in leather shops, where ya could be cutting A LOT.
 
A lot of old leather guys put the compound on the other side of the leather. Seems to hold better. Honestly, most guys have switched from strops to buffers in leather shops, where ya could be cutting A LOT.
paper/cardboard wheels?
I'm not sure what you mean?

I've never used one, but That interests me, not sure if people still use them, or if it was a fad? Does it degrade the edge at a micro level from heat? idk?
 
The paper wheels is a great sharpening system. I used it for years. When I upgraded my buffer the paper wheels didn't fit so I switched to a leather wheel. I have a leather belt but don't care for it.
 
paper/cardboard wheels?
I'm not sure what you mean?

I've never used one, but That interests me, not sure if people still use them, or if it was a fad? Does it degrade the edge at a micro level from heat? idk?
No just a sewn wheel with green scratch remover. I’ll use a loose wheel after with white rouge but thats really more to remove any gunk from the green.
 
Same here - I use a 6", 60 layer sewn muslin wheel running around 1000RPM. I charge it with matchless white compound. Just a pass or two after sharpening on the belt grinder (usually 120 grit) removes the wire and polishes the edge. I then cut up a 4X6 postcard into slices and wipe off the blade with alcohol.

I do some Japanese kitchen knives on the water stones, but the power sharpening on the belt grinder and a quick buff works fine for most knives and takes less than 60 seconds a knife.

I have a leather belt in the shop that I haven't used in many years. When I want to leather-strop a blade, I have a long strop board I made that works fine. The leather belt is a lot of trouble to set up and adjust the tension.



There is another reason I don't use the leather strop belt anymore. It was a strop belt that snagged the tip of a fillet knife late one night and in 1/100th of a second cut a chunk off the heel of my hand off. It could have been a tragic accident, but luckily all I lost was a 1" circle of palm meat and skin. I have a cool scar to remind me.
I was working late at night finishing up a big batch of fillet knives. I was tired, and after sharpening the batch on a 400-grit belt I put on the leather belt. I neglected to turn the speed down to dead slow and proceeded to strop the knives at the same speed I sharpened them at. On one knife the tip snagged just a little on the leather as I was switching sides and flipped across my left hand. I felt a sting and saw a piece of my knit glove fall on the workbench. I grabbed a paper towel, wrapped it around my hand, and headed inside to see how bad I was cut. When I removed the glove and looked, I had a 1" circle of missing skin and flesh on the heel of the hand about 1" above the wrist. Just a little lower and I would have severed my arteries at the wrist. It took a couple months for the wound to heal and a couple years for the palm to grow back enough meat so I didn't have a flat spot.
Moving a super sharp knife along a strop board is far safer way to strop the edge.
A buffer can also be very dangerous around a sharp blade. I use a buffer because that is what I use all day long in my jewelry work. Even then I am very careful with the position of
the knife and edge when buffing. A Buffer Can Be Very Dangerous if you are not trained to use one right. I have 12" commercial buffers, but rarely use them. except on handles.
I also don't work tired anymore.
 
I've never used a leather belt but do have a leather wheel. Haven't used it in decades. Safety as Stacy, mentioned, is important as buffers can be very dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. Yesterday had a local guy in the shop. He was over for some horse stuff but I had him come into the shop as I'd just finished a batch of knives. He wanted to place an order for a knife but he wasn't sure which model he wanted so now was a good time for him to actually handle several different finished ones to see if any of these models would suit him. We were talking steels too. I use AEB-L and 26C3, both relatively hard at 62-63RC on the stainless and 63-64RC on the high carbon. In the cowboy world ease of resharpening trumps edge holding ability and we were talking about the characteristics of each steel being somewhat similar. Anyhoo, I grabbed a piece of scrap out of the trash can. This was 8/10 oz saddle skirting leather and my roundknife off the bench (AEB-L). I started slicing through the leather and while the roundknife was cutting it, there was some obvious drag. Walked over to the buffer bench and turned on the green scratchless and the white rouge buffers. Zip, zip on each side, turn off the green an even smaller zip zip on the white and turn that buffer off. When I say zip zip I mean 2/3 seconds tops per side. Walked back over to the workbench and now the roundknife glided through the heavy leather, like it wasn't there. He was absolutely dumbfounded at the difference that just a few seconds made. I learned a long time ago from doing shows if a potential customer was coming to it from the cowboy side of things or from the hunter side of things. The cowboy asked how easy it is to resharpen, the hunter asks how well does it hold an edge. Anyhoo

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