Is polishing compound necessary on a leather strop?

stitchawl said:
Absolutely! That was the whole reason for the "Russian Leather" tanning process, and why rolling, compressing, and casing new veg-tanned hides make them more effective for bare leather stropping.
Stitchawl
Click to expand...

Tell me more about this mystical leather of which I am ignorant!!!!!!!
 
stitchawl said:
Silicates are the single most abundant chemical on our (or, at least my) planet. They are found in every carbon based life form, and found mixed into most of the non-living structures as well. Our own skin has plenty of silicates in it, which is why, when one takes a well honed edge and strops it on one's palm, the edge gets sharper. We see our friend the barber do this often.
[snip]

I think it's important, though, that in our reading, we keep in mind that not everything we read on the Internet is accurate, and that we temper our beliefs with some rationality.
Stitchawl
Click to expand...

Hi Stitchawl,

Thanks for your reply. Very interesting stuff! :)

I didn't know the hardness range for silicates. Browsing wikipedia, it seems that they range from 5 to about 8 on the Moh's scale, which if you convert to Rockwell C Hardness tops out around 70-75 HRC. This conversion is extremely approximate of course (because the various hardness scales are so different). But this convinces me that some silicates (in particular aluminum silicates) are harder that modern knife steels. Many other silicates are not very hard, which is why I wondered (see post-script below).

I'm very aware that silicates are ubiquitous, especially among rocks and minerals. But what I'm specifically wondering is:
(1) What happens during the tanning process? Sort of a dumb question, but what is tanning, in terms of the chemistry?
(2) Do the silicates which are specifically added for tanning significantly increase the abrasiveness of the leather? Or is this only a minor effect, and instead, the natural silicates are the dominant abrasive?

The other thing is, it would be super awesome if you could show us some references and citations. It would help us learn a lot! :)
Part of the problem is a lot of people on the forums simply assert stuff, and it becomes difficult to:
(1) Evaluate if their statements are true because no evidence nor references are provided.
(2) Learn more about the subjects on our own without bothering the original poster with a huge pile of additional questions.

Some people naively assume that if what they say is true, then it will be believed and understood. But honestly, it can be difficult to tell the difference between truth and myth without evidence and citations. Especially for people like me, who are relatively new and unexperienced in the knife enthusiast community.

Sincerely,
--Lagrangian

P.S. If you're wondering how I very roughly estimated HRC from Moh's hardness:
Well, I don't know if I did this correctly actually, but here's the path I took, which is not necessarily the best:

Mohs Hardness --> Vicker's Hardness (VH)
http://www.cidraprecisionservices.com/mohs-conversion.html

Vicker's Hardness --> Rockwell C Hardness (HRC)
http://www.grantadesign.com/images/hardness.fe2.gif

Keep in mind that "hardness" has no fundamental defintion in science and engineering. Instead, it is defined procedurally; by various standardized tests, with a different test for each type of hardness (Vickers, Rockwell C, Mohs, Brinell, etc.). As a result, it is only possible to approximately convert one type of hardness to another type, because it is a little like trying to convert apples into oranges. Not to mention, the Mohs hardness scale is terrible for engineering applications (because it is highly non-uniform/non-linear, and is not very precise in that each Mohs hardness covers a fairly wide range). A wonderful tutorial on hardness can be found here:
http://www.gordonengland.co.uk/hardness/

Some of the harder silicate minerals (rocks): I have only listed the upper-end of thier Mohs hardness. Keep in mind that different variants of these silicates are softer, but the hardest types in each class have the following hardness:
7.5 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garnet
7.5 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andalusite
8.0 Mohs (by definition) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topaz
7.5 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staurolite
8.5 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumortierite
7.0 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sillimanite
7.0 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyanite
7.0 Mohs (by definition) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz
7.0 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivine
7.5 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsonite
7.0 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidote
7.0 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoisite
7.0 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinozoisite
7.0 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollaseite-(Ce)
7.0 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesuvianite
7.5 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axinite
7.5 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordierite
7.5 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourmaline

Many of the other silicates are softer:
5.5 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willemite
6.5 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chondrodite
6.0 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinohumite
6.5 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humite
5.5 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datolite
5.5 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanite
6.5 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloritoid
5.0 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemimorphite
6.0 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilvaite
6.0 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allanite
6.5 Mohs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benitoite

The softer silicates which top out at a Mohs hardness of 5, have a corresponding HRC in the 50's, which is much softer than modern knife steels which are around 60 HRC. But the hard silicates with a Mohs hardness of 8 or even 8.5 have a corresponding hardness around 75 HRC, which is very hard indeed!

This list is mainly for silicates that occur in rocks and minerals. I haven't looked into biological silicates yet.

Now I just need to track down a reference on the size of silicates in leather and other biological systems...
 
Last edited:
Lagrangian said:
The other thing is, it would be super awesome if you could show us some references and citations. It would help us learn a lot! :)
Part of the problem is a lot of people on the forums simply assert stuff, and it becomes difficult to:
(1) Evaluate if their statements are true because no evidence nor references are provided.
Click to expand...

... and right there is where I foresee the biggest dilema. Follow this, if you will;
1. We all know of Verhoevan and the work that he produced. A wealth of knowledge from a respected scientist.
2. We know that Verhoevan categorically stated that bare leather stropping produce no discernible results.
3. Many of us have personally witnessed that bare leather stropping DOES produce very positive results.
4. So... we, who are NOT respected scientists have SEEN WITH OUR OWN EYES that bare leather stropping does work, are asked to listen to other respected scientists and take their results as the gospel?

I can't do that. I enjoy reading about it. I enjoy theorizing. But I simply can't blindly accept 'facts' that I read on the Internet. I've seen just way too many errors.


Stitchawl
 
Hi stitchawl,

I respect Verhoeven, but I don't think he's god or absolute truth. If his results don't show any significant effect, than that's his results. That doesn't mean he's wrong, that means he failed to reproduce other people's results. That doesn't mean other people are wrong. It could mean his experimental results are correct in that they are reproducible, but are flawed in that they don't represent what other people are doing. Depending on how it is resolved, this could be a critique of Verhoeven's methods.

For example, what is a test one might propose that improves upon Verhoeven's experiments? This is not a hypothetical question: Clay Allison of Wicked Edge is interested in collaborating with a specific laboratory at Sandia National Labs that has a scanning electron microscope (SEM). If we have ideas about how to do a stropping test correctly, then now is the time to discuss them in full technical detail. Wouldn't it be interesting if there were more careful results from Sandia that differed from Verhoeven's?
http://www.wickededgeusa.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=11&id=6638&Itemid=63#6643

Another knife-enthusiast friend of mine is studying material science as an undergraduate at university. He may have access to optical metallographic microscopes, and he has started a hobby with leather work. He might be able to perform an experiment for us. And other forum members like HeavyHanded regularly post impressive microscope photos. I think it would be great to get such members of the community intersested in doing careful experiments.

The idea is that a citation to Verhoeven's report shows his procedure and his results, which helps us judge his results. If his methods are bad, or incompletely described, then we can debate which could possibly lead to better methods and understanding in the community. The idea is to elevate the debate beyond a mish-mash of hear-say versus hear-say into a discussion that advances the community's understanding.

Admittedly, doing this is more work for the poster to track down citations.
But I try to do so out of respect for readers.
This is just my personal opinion, and if you disagree, then naturally I'm disappointed.
But I still respect your statements and will give them due weight.

Sincerely,
--Lagrangian

P.S. btw, if you (or anyone) has ideas about how to test stropping on plain leather, please post your thoughts. Whether or not you have citations. And whether or not they are specifically about Verhoeven's work. Citations are nice, but not necessary.
 
Last edited:
There was recently a discussion on the Razor forum re stropping on undressed leather and what it may or may not do. I took a close look at some leather samples with a metallographic microscope (and have done so in the past as well). It is surprising the size of some of the mineral 'contaminants' one can see in a given sample (I was looking at a tool belt from HD). The tanning process (even brain tanned leather uses hardwood ashes I believe) adds silicates to the already abundant silicates that naturally occur in all plant and animal connective and soft-structural tissues. Unfortunately, any silicates that can pass thru a cell wall are too small for me to see with an optical microscope, and the leather itself is too irregular to easily focus on at 1000x. I was able to focus on what I believed to be small metallic pieces on the strop after use that were very close to the 1u limit of the microscope. Using oil-immersion they looked like a constellation of stars - not present prior to use. Also needs to be pointed out that leather has a very interesting structure that appears tailor-made for catching and trapping small particles. It could easily be snagging and removing unsupported pieces of metal and not really polishing in its own right. Either way you'd need a much stronger microscope, as abrasive particles a fraction of a micron aren't going to remove any metal flecks that will be visible with an optical microscope - at least not reliably.

At 640x I observed small layers in a freshly sliced sample of leather that threw back light - possibly silicate deposits or oil deposits etc. I don't know. I have taken pieces of metal and polished them to a noticeable degree on plain leather. Is this burnishing, working with trapped contaminants, some other mechanism? I have no idea....It does something but I don't know how or what.
 
Hi HeavyHanded & Lagrangian & Obsessed,

Please create a new thread - you can write up a better summary/hypothesis much better than I can :p. I've a far out (the box) idea to post.

Thanks,

Blunt.
 
Last edited:
HeavyHanded said:
(...) Also needs to be pointed out that leather has a very interesting structure that appears tailor-made for catching and trapping small particles. It could easily be snagging and removing unsupported pieces of metal and not really polishing in its own right. Either way you'd need a much stronger microscope, as abrasive particles a fraction of a micron aren't going to remove any metal flecks that will be visible with an optical microscope - at least not reliably.

At 640x I observed small layers in a freshly sliced sample of leather that threw back light - possibly silicate deposits or oil deposits etc. I don't know. I have taken pieces of metal and polished them to a noticeable degree on plain leather. Is this burnishing, working with trapped contaminants, some other mechanism? I have no idea....It does something but I don't know how or what.
Click to expand...

In the practical sense, that's how I've come to view bare-leather stropping. I'm fully willing to accept there may be some actual abrasion/polishing going on. But, if one needs a microscope or SEM to verify it, then I don't set my expectations too high. I see much more value in how bare leather can 'clean up' an edge, by snagging some of the debris/burrs/etc. and also very gently straightening a very thin wire edge, such as on a straight razor. I see a very similar value in stropping on denim. If I really do want to highly polish the bevels, then (going all the way back to the OP's original question) I'd be using some compound to get it there.

It's still great fun to theorize or 'unscientifically speculate' (;)) about what's going on at the microscopic level, and I'm certain it gets my mind more in the 'zone' for sharpening, to think about these things. I enjoy discussions like this because, one way or another, I always learn something that eventually benefits my skill set. Even if there's no tangible, documentable 'proof' to show for it, at least not yet. :)
 
Last edited:
Lagrangian said:
Hi stitchawl,
I respect Verhoeven, but I don't think he's god or absolute truth. If his results don't show any significant effect, than that's his results. That doesn't mean he's wrong, ...................
Click to expand...

That's exactly my point.

This is just my personal opinion, and if you disagree, then naturally I'm disappointed.
Click to expand...

No... I agree completely! I just don't have the same level of interest in the chemical or mechanical 'process.' I'm more concerned with the final results. For me, the 'process' is simply the way I get there.


Obsessed with Edges said:
In the practical sense, that's how I've come to view bare-leather stropping. I'm fully willing to accept there may be some actual abrasion/polishing going on. But, if one needs a microscope or SEM to verify it, then I don't set my expectations too high.
Click to expand...

Hence the reason for having a well-honed edge BEFORE going to the bare leather strop. The results garnered from a grit size that measures in nanometers is NOT going to be similar to the before-and-after shots when using a 120grit water stone.

It's still great fun to theorize or 'unscientifically speculate' (;)) about what's going on at the microscopic level, and I'm certain it gets my mind more in the 'zone' for sharpening, to think about these things. I enjoy discussions like this because, one way or another, I always learn something that eventually benefits my skill set. Even if there's no tangible, documentable 'proof' to show for it, at least not yet. :)
Click to expand...

And THAT is the truth, right there! :)

Stitchawl
 
Hi Stitchawl,

Thanks for your post. As a scientist type (physics major undergrad, graduate degree in computer science), I'm super-fascinated by the technical science in knives, metallurgy, abrasion, etc. If you're not as crazy about all that stuff, well that's fine with me. :)

Like SunsetFisherman, I'm intersted to learn more about the Russian Tanning process. In general, where did you go to learn about leather and leather tanning? I ask so that myself and others could go look for similar resources.

Verhoven noticed some slight changes from using plain leather, but they were so small he was rather disappointed. Verhoeven's original hypothesis was that plain leather would be more abrasive than his results showed. So like you are suggesting, I suppose it is possible that these smaller effects are only significant for an extremely keen edge. (By "small" I simply mean in microns/nano-meters, not necessarily small in terms of sharpness. For example, a 0.1 micron reduction in edge width is not enormous if your edge is 0.5 microns wide, but it is huge if the edge is 0.2 microns wide.)

I may suggest to Clay Allison to do an experiment on stropping with plain leather, especially if his collaboration with Sandia National Labs works out. There are already a lot of tutorials on stropping in general, but I'm wondering if you, yourself, have any particular recommendations for stropping? For example, a particular brand or type of leather strop you like, or suggestions on technique, or level of pressure and angle?

Sincerely,
--Lagrangian
 
Lagrangian said:
Hi Stitchawl,

Thanks for your post. As a scientist type (physics major undergrad, graduate degree in computer science), I'm super-fascinated by the technical science in knives, metallurgy, abrasion, etc. If you're not as crazy about all that stuff, well that's fine with me. :)

Like SunsetFisherman, I'm intersted to learn more about the Russian Tanning process. In general, where did you go to learn about leather and leather tanning? I ask so that myself and others could go look for similar resources.
Click to expand...

My knowledge of the "Russian Leather" tanning process came from research at the New York City Library on 42nd St, back in the late 70's. 40 years on, I'd be hard pressed to tell you the names of the books I was using... My father had just given me his father's Russian Leather razor strop, and I wanted to know what that meant. I had been working/playing with veg-tanned leathers, latigo, and bridal leathers, and knew that chrome tanned leather was mostly used for clothing and furniture, but never heard of "Russian Red Leather" (which was what my grandfather called his strop.) So on a visit to NYC, I made part of my trip an afternoon of research in the biggest library I had ever seen at the time! It became very clear why strop sellers were no longer able to offer this specialty. That process involved hand pulling hides over the rounded end of a log for several days! One hide - several full days of pulling... Let's see... at Union scale of 24-36 hours labor, that would be... plus overhead... plus profit... For 'real' Russian Leather to be used for a strop, it would have to sell for well over $300+ USD per strop!

The stuff being sold today as 'Russian Leather' strops are simply machine pounded the same way cordovan leather is treated. This is why I was so tickled to be able to get a shell section of Horween's cordovan horsehide to make some strops. It's about as close as you can come to the old process, and the results using it are nothing short of miraculous. Just about as good as Grandpa's old strop, but mounted on bench blocks for my beveled edges!

There are already a lot of tutorials on stropping in general, but I'm wondering if you, yourself, have any particular recommendations for stropping? For example, a particular brand or type of leather strop you like, or suggestions on technique, or level of pressure and angle?
Click to expand...

Absotivly. Bench strop for bevels, hanging strops for convex. Because horses usually feed on grasses rather than grains, their hides tend to have a much higher natural silicate level. With this in mind, when using a bare strop, horsehide works better than cowhide simply because there are more silicates available to be abrasive. If you have cowhide, casing it and then rolling it does the double duty of compressing the leather making it a firm substrate (as firm as most woods considering you don't use any extra downward pressure on it when stropping,) and forces more silicates to the surface, again, making it a more abrasive surface.

If you are using compounds, your choice of substrates is limited only to the sort of edge (bevel or convex) you are working towards; firm substrate for bevels, softer for convex. There really shouldn't be more downward pressure applied other than the weight of the knife being stropped. If you DO use more pressure when you strop, then you need to be more concerned with the density of your substrate.

I'd love to know the grit size of the clay used for glossy magazine pages. Stropping on a National Geographic works very, very well, especially after using a .5 mic Chromium Oxide so I have to assume that the grit size is smaller. But when I DO use a magazine cover, I prefer to tear it off the magazine and stick it onto a wooden block... That works very nicely! I used to use "Life" magazine as it was ubiquitous during my younger days... "Playboy" worked well too. When "Hustler" came out I tried that, but found when asked by a girlfriend what I was doing, and I replied "stropping with a copy of 'Hustler,' it was too easy for her to get the wrong idea.


Stitchawl
 
Hi Stitchawl,

Thanks! And lol @ some of your magazine "studies." :)
If you were to get a strop today, which specific strop would you buy, and/or which strop do you use these days?

After searching around a bit on Google, I finally found this research paper on silicates in plants. I haven't had a chance to read it in detail yet, but the image below seems rather telling.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Silica in Plants: Biological, Biochemical and Chemical Studies
Heather A. Currie and Carole C. Perry
Annals of Botany (2007)
Ann Bot (2007) 100 (7): 1383-1389.
http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/100/7/1383.full
http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/100/7/1383.full.pdf+html

-------------------------------------------------------------------
An image from the paper, with caption:

pjorS.jpg

"Electron micrographs of silica structures from plants. (A) Gel-like (left) and globular silica (right) from the early-diverging plant Equisetum arvense at very early stages of development of the silica structures. (B) Stomata of mature E. arvense surrounded by pilulae encrusted with rosettes; the observed specimens contain 0·1 % w/w C, with the remainder being silica; left, upper surface; right, lower surface. (C) Inorganic material from acid-digested Cucurbita (marrow) leaves (right-hand image shows the Si elemental map)."
-------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not very knowledgeable about paper, but I imagine it could have many different types of abrasive. As you mention, there could be silicates from the plant-based cellulose as well as clay which is added. I suppose there could even be whitening agents as well, perhaps titanium-dioxide which is almost ubiquitous in industrial applications? It seems titanium-dioxide has a Mohs hardness of around 5.5-6.5 which is perhaps on the soft side, but still significiantly hard, perhaps up to the upper 60's in HRC (if you believe the conversions I mentioned above).
http://www.reade.com/Particle_Briefings/mohs_hardness_abrasive_grit.html

http://www2.dupont.com/Titanium_Technologies/en_US/index.html
"The DuPont titanium dioxide business is dedicated to creating greater, more rewarding value for the paper industry through our total offering of service and product superior to any in the industry."

This isn't even mentioning stuff like the glossy polymer coating on magazines... There are so many possible additives it might be difficult to track them all down. Pretty fun stuff! :)

Sincerely,
--Lagrangian
 
Last edited:
bluntcut said:
Hi HeavyHanded & Lagrangian & Obsessed,

Please create a new thread - you can write up a better summary/hypothesis much better than I can :p. I've a far out (the box) idea to post.

Thanks,

Blunt.
Click to expand...

Hi bluntcut,

Wait what? :) Not sure I understand... Why not begin a thread of your own? ^_^;
btw, I'm curious to hear your idea!

Sincerely,
--Lagrangian
 
Lagrangian said:
Hi bluntcut,

Wait what? :) Not sure I understand... Why not begin a thread of your own? ^_^;
btw, I'm curious to hear your idea!

Sincerely,
--Lagrangian
Click to expand...

My idea...

This bare leather stropping bugged me a bit so after some noodling & looked at Clay's images. I've been tinkered/experiments stropping in form of statics/plasma discharge - mainly Triboelectric and Pyroelectricity. So far, my prelim results (burnished) confirm this theory. Friction/tumble silicates in non-conductive substrate seem to be the key. Where plasma temporarily loosen intermolecular bond for the burnishing to occur and note once a surface is smooth, this burnishing virtually stop, except at the apex/edge.

I want to see it for myself but I had no luck convince (down right pathetic bribery on my part) my neighbor - Prof UCSB Mat Eng - to let me use the nano SEM + borrow 1 of his Grad as well. Clay + Sandia Labs :thumbup:
 
Hi Bluntcut,

Emm... That's too far out in left field for me to be seriously interested in.

To get me interested, you would need, at a minimum, to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation to show that the physics of it makes sense or is plausible. ie: How much voltage and current is generated by those processes, what fraction of this is transfered to the metal surface and in what form (just heat? ionization?), and show that the energy is significantly high relative to the energy required to affect the surface significantly.

For example, if I shuffle across a carpet and then get a static electric spark from my knife, is that more or less energy (or voltage, or current, etc.) than you are talking about? Would a static spark from my hand even be enough to significantly affect the metal surface? (I don't mean anything like arc-welding, etc. I mean a spark from every-day static electricity.)

I don't know the answer to these questions, but I feel extremely skeptical. Manufacturing and finishing of metals has millennia of history, and an inconceivable number of things have been tried in the modern era. If there aren't any reference to such a process being applied in manufacturing or research, there's probably a good reason for that. If you do find a technical reference about it, then please post it, and we'll have a look.

Sincerely,
--Lagrangian
 
Lagrangian said:
(...) I don't know the answer to these questions, but I feel extremely skeptical. Manufacturing and finishing of metals has millennia of history, and an inconceivable number of things have been tried in the modern era. If there aren't any reference to such a process being applied in manufacturing or research, there's probably a good reason for that. (...)
Sincerely,
--Lagrangian
Click to expand...

Something I keep noticing, when searching the web for 'answers' to many of the mysteries of steel, sharpening, abrasives, etc., is there are a lot of very scant, vague references to technical documents that might have more insight, but often one is required to purchase the doc as a whole, to read more. That gets me to wondering, and it wouldn't surprise me if some truly advanced methods or technologies exist, but may either be proprietary to a corporation or patent-holder ('trade secrets', in other words), and may not be readily available to the public at large. I used to work in the semiconductor industry and, in that sector, new manufacturing technologies were zealously protected by the companies holding the patents, and they were likely patenting new ones at the rate of thousands per year. Companies that manufacture tools, steel, abrasives and other technologies related to our 'hobby' here might not be sharing everything they know about materials & methods either. Assuming something really is a game-changer or takes it to a whole new level, I can't really blame the inventor for playing it close to the vest, at least until they figure out a way to get rich off of it (that's my cynical view of such things, anyway). ;)
 
Lagrangian - lol, I hear your skeptism loud & clear. It's not so simple to even to come up with a hand-waving #s at localize molecular level. Sometime, it's just better to experiments, once found a solid suspect cause then perhaps come up with formal theory.

For example, strop on alcohol vs sea-water (non-conduct vs conductive) soaked bare leather. I get virtually zero burnish from sea-water. OK, maybe it could be the funky ocean-water affected the leather beyond the fact that it's conductive. I've tried various conductive/non-conduct substrate, blade. They seem to support my wag conjecture. Another experiment, was strop window-glass (about same hrc as knife blade) that scored by 600grit diamond against bare leather, well I didn't see any smoothing/burnishing. Until these experiments get replicate & confirmed or failed by others, in the mean time - my idea remains a left field foul by default.
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
Something I keep noticing, when searching the web for 'answers' to many of the mysteries of steel, sharpening, abrasives, etc., is there are a lot of very scant, vague references to technical documents that might have more insight, but often one is required to purchase the doc as a whole, to read more. That gets me to wondering, and it wouldn't surprise me if some truly advanced methods or technologies exist, but may either be proprietary to a corporation or patent-holder ('trade secrets', in other words), and may not be readily available to the public at large. I used to work in the semiconductor industry and, in that sector, new manufacturing technologies were zealously protected by the companies holding the patents, and they were likely patenting new ones at the rate of thousands per year. Companies that manufacture tools, steel, abrasives and other technologies related to our 'hobby' here might not be sharing everything they know about materials & methods either. Assuming something really is a game-changer or takes it to a whole new level, I can't really blame the inventor for playing it close to the vest, at least until they figure out a way to get rich off of it (that's my cynical view of such things, anyway). ;)
Click to expand...
:thumbup: I share your perspective.

Patents kill innovation. OK ok, guilty me, I just apply for a patent on cold super conductivity :rolleyes:
 
Lagrangian said:
Hi Stitchawl,

Thanks! And lol @ some of your magazine "studies." :)
If you were to get a strop today, which specific strop would you buy, and/or which strop do you use these days?
Click to expand...

If I were buying a strop, I'd ask myself a few questions first;
1.Is it going to be used on a straight razor, knife, or carving chisels?
2.Do I want the edge to be beveled or convex?

If I were working with woodworking chisels, I'd use an MDF board with Chromium Oxide on it, not bothering with any leather. Obviously, any smooth, flat, hard surface will do for this, but it does need to be hard.

If buying (and I stress the word 'buying,') a strop for knives, ordering over the Internet, that I was going to cover with compounds, I'd look for a single sided block mounted piece of cowhide, smooth side up and un-sanded, at the cheapest price I could find. Smooth side up and firm for beveled edges, but rough side up or sanded and less firm for convex edges.

But I wouldn't buy one... If I have to order something, I'd order a 12"x12" piece of tooling cowhide for knife sheaths from any of the knifemaker supply sources (I'd really prefer horsehide, but that's often hard to find and if your going to cover it with compound anyway it doesn't make a difference,) for $10-$15 and cut it down into four 3" wide strops. $2 worth of glue and some free scraps of wood from the home center or lumber yard, and I'd have four different bench mounted strops that are as good as anything you can buy on the Internet. If you really want even BETTER strops, spend an hour or two rolling dampened leather with a heavy rolling pin to compress it, then let it dry and glue it to the blocks. No special tools needed to make it unless you wish to do some creative wood working for the base. Your EDC should be more than sharp enough to cut the leather. If not, you don't need a strop yet.

If my purpose is a strop for a straight razor, if I could afford one made with horsehide, I'd pick the prettiest 3" wide hanging strop, from which ever 'SHAVING' supplies company was selling it. If cost was an issue, I'd pick a 3" wide hanging cowhide strop. Again, from a SHAVING supplies company. I'd chose one that had a brass swivel on top, and something to hold onto at the bottom. I would NOT be swayed by claims of Russian Leather at much higher prices unless it was horsehide. If I could find a horsehide strop made from shell cordovan, I'd buy that in a minute! Razor strops aren't magic things. They are tools to be used daily, so should be well constructed and be comfortable to use; i.e. good handle and good swivel hanger. But if you read the various shaving supply sources, most don't even bother to say how thick their leather is, or from what part of the hide it's coming from, how it is processed, etc. Most just say 'premium leather' or 'top grade cowhide,' neither of which has any meaning in the leather trade... So don't waste money buying the most expensive available. It's not necessarily the best to use.

I have a closet full of old HandAmerican strops that never get used. Probably a dozen of 'em now as I've given away so many over the years. I've my Grandfathers real Russian Leather horsehide hanging strop that I look at more than use. Then I've got a couple of 3"x 10" cowhide strops that I made, just cased, compressed, and glued to a piece of 1x3 scrap pine. I put some 2.5mic Silicon Carbide paste on one, 1.8 diamond paste on another, .5 mic Chromium Oxide on a third, and .25 mic Diamond paste the fourth. Of them all, I really only use the .5mic Chromium Oxide and the .25mic diamond, and then go to a 3"x10 block mounted shell cordovan horsehide strop that I made. I also have a piece of 3x5 unmounted shell cordovan horsehide that sits in my pack for travel.

Basically, after using my EdgePro and polishing tapes, I might use the Chromium Oxide and the bare horsehide more than anything else, and I only need the EdgePro 2-3 times a year. My kitchen knives don't get stropped, but they do get touched up every week on a Sharpmaker, and 'steeled' (with a borosilicate glass rod) before each use daily.


Stitchawl
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top