Are Leather Strops pointless? Yes! Yes they are.

[Uncle Timbo]

You can strop with cardboard. Having said that. I'll stick with my cowhide loaded with chromium. Then if I feel I want to take it to the umpteenth degree, I'll finish off with bare-naked horse hide.
I could shave a pimple off a nats arse.

 

[jc57]

Hard paperboard makes a good stropping substrate. I used to harvest pallet corner protectors made out of hard pressed thick paperboard, cut them to size, then use a stick of the crayon-type green compound (Porter-Cable stuff from Lowe's) on them. I'd lay it over the edge of a desk or worktable. If it wore out, I just tossed it and got another one. The stick of compound (less than 3$) will last pretty much forever. The cardboard was free since it was on incoming pallets and would otherwise get tossed.

Made for a nice quickie touchup at work.

These things, the nice thick ones. Hard to tell from the pic but they are about 3' long:

 

[David Martin]

Gees those things don't look 3 feet. I can see they would work. Then with slurry applied, they would work better. Glad you got a usage for them. DM

 

[Bang*Bang**]

I love it! Pretty much everyone has their own variation of a solution.

I'm still far from finding my best solution for knife or straight razor edge. Honestly, it even seems like each different metal or each blade might respond differently to each hone/strop combination and technique.

I guess it just boils down to what works for you.

It does seem like leather strops are a bit of a cash grab though.

 

[stitchawl]

It does seem like leather strops are a bit of a cash grab though.

If you are going to cover them up with compound, then yes, they are.
Rather like being so proud of your Gold Medal that you have it bronzed...
It's the micro-sized silicates in bare leather than give it its value as the 'Final Step' in the sharpening process. If you put larger grit compound over it, you don't get its benefit.

 

[HeavyHanded]

Hard paperboard makes a good stropping substrate. I used to harvest pallet corner protectors made out of hard pressed thick paperboard, cut them to size, then use a stick of the crayon-type green compound (Porter-Cable stuff from Lowe's) on them. I'd lay it over the edge of a desk or worktable. If it wore out, I just tossed it and got another one. The stick of compound (less than 3$) will last pretty much forever. The cardboard was free since it was on incoming pallets and would otherwise get tossed.

Made for a nice quickie touchup at work.

These things, the nice thick ones. Hard to tell from the pic but they are about 3' long:

I like to use those for cut/chop tests!

 

[Uncle Timbo]

I love it! Pretty much everyone has their own variation of a solution.

I'm still far from finding my best solution for knife or straight razor edge. Honestly, it even seems like each different metal or each blade might respond differently to each hone/strop combination and technique.

I guess it just boils down to what works for you.

It does seem like leather strops are a bit of a cash grab though.

Okay, here we go, one more time. A leather strop doesn't have to be pricey. Get a couple of 5 gallon paint stir sticks and glue them together with contact cement. Get you a piece of leather online somewhere. Or take your belt off and turn it around. It the stir sticks are too long, cut to lenght. Then, I like to soften the edges with my belt sander. You could even get crazy and stain it. Contact cement the leather to the stir sticks.
But some green chromium oxide at Lowe's. Heat the leather and the chromium with a hair dryer. The charge the strop with the chromium oxide.
Easy peasy.

 

[jc57]

I bought a length of quality veg-tanned leather intended for beltmaking at my local Tandy. I cut off an 18" section of it and hand cased it based on what I learned from older posts by S stitchawl . Turned out pretty well.

Made the leather much more dense and stiffened up the strip. The rough side was actually pretty smooth so I applied green compound to that side. I left the smooth side alone. I didn't mount it to anything I just use it flat on the edge of a shelf and hold it in place. That way I can flip it and use either side.

 

[Stregone]

At work last night I was cutting up some cardboard to 'dummie up' a display of peaches and nectarines. They want the displays to look full, but it is too perishable to have more than 1 layer out at a time. So you put some little cardboard berry cups in the display, and then cut a piece of cardboard the same size as the display box and lay it over the baskets, then lay the tray of peaches on top of that. It looks like there are 2 or 3 layers of highly perishable product but there's only 1. Anyways, my knife had a full resharpening recently and I have been stropping it every day/other day to keep it up which has been working well, cutting through cardboard like butter (blows my coworkers minds). Last night at work during all this cardboard cutting it seemed like it was starting to loose its edge. I remembered this thread and laid a long piece of cardboard down on the bench and used it like a strop. Really brought the edge back, not quite the same as before, but a big improvement. Could just be my technique though, still working on that

Also, I have been meaning to throw out an old pair of jeans for a week or so. Luckily I am lazy so now I am going to recycle it and give a denim strop a try because why not?

 

[Bang*Bang**]

Strobe - Awesome real life craftiness! That is the idea behind this post. It doesn't need to be leather to work, and in some cases alternatives work better.

If you use your blade a lot at work or on the go, I've found these three things to be super useful to pack with you (EDC-style):

1. 2"x2" piece of chromium oxide to rub on whatever you've got, packed in a super small hard plastic container so it doesn't get squashed and broken. Cost= $40CDN or less for a full slab of CrOx. The full length is about 6-8 inches.
2. A small home made two sided strop with denim glued to it (CrOx on the rougher side of the denim on one side, smoother material on the other with no CrOx). Cost = dirt cheap to free. Find wood, old jeans and glue, all you need is the CrOx.
3. The DMT credit card sharpening kit Cost= ~$40CDN includes 325/600/1200 diamond hones.

Ranked in order of times I've used them.

My colleague at work last week had two of the disposable scalpel-like razors that I managed to bring back to paper slicing sharp just with the denim/CrOx strop I made (see link http://vault.sfu.ca/index.php/s/qUwj5bVLGlq1H6Y ). The nice thing about having all three is that one can do anything from refinish an edge to small scope edge repair.

On a separate note: whether it's that clever paint stick leather strop idea or others, keep em coming blade community! I don't think we can have too many useful ways to build a sharpener out of whatever is available.

 

[Uncle Timbo]

I bought a length of quality veg-tanned leather intended for beltmaking at my local Tandy. I cut off an 18" section of it and hand cased it based on what I learned from older posts by S stitchawl . Turned out pretty well.

Made the leather much more dense and stiffened up the strip. The rough side was actually pretty smooth so I applied green compound to that side. I left the smooth side alone. I didn't mount it to anything I just use it flat on the edge of a shelf and hold it in place. That way I can flip it and use either side.

You know, if you have two pieces of this leather, I would charge the rough side, glue the smooth side on the opposite side of the strop, and use the plain, smooth side as the final strop.
Ideally, if you really wanted to take your blade to the umpteenth degree, you'd make the final pass on bare horsehide. Look it up. In lieu of that, use bare cowhide.
When the strop turns black from steel, clean with 99 cent lanolin hand cleaner, rinse with hot water. Allow to dry for a day, repeat process and you have a brand new strop.

 

[Uncle Timbo]

FYI. A maker has some strops for sale, fairly cheap in their area. And BTW, he's not my dad or my brother or my friend or my mother. You can call it deal spotting if you want, I call it helping out a fellow knife nut because it pertains to this thread of someone looking for value.