leather for strop.

M

MikeS1605

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Oct 25, 2009
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I was looking around but could not seem to find much on this. I tinkered in leather making for the last 3 years and have a lot of leather laying around. Some pretty high quality, some just some tandy garbage. Because im so broke I cant pay attention, I would love to use some leather that I have to start stropping on. But Since I have never done it and All I have are mid to high end knives (benchmade autos, Snody's and Hinderer's) I dont want to use a cheaper leather that will mess anything up.

Is there a difference in leather quality when it comes to stropping? Im hoping that as long as it is smooth leather I will be good to go. Thanks in advance for helping me get into this sharpening arena!
 
as long as the leather is decent quality and it doesn't have imperfections, you should be good. how long and wide are you planning to make the strop?

p.s. another way to get leather strop info is on forums dealing with straight razors.
 
half decent leather will work fine for strop blocks. Not sure on a hanging strop/ slack strop like a Barber uses. The leather for those is pretty uniform.

I use a home made strop bat for my Busse knives with no concern. Nothing high quality about it. I keep meaning to make a better one with thicker leather I have. But it has been working just fine for the past few years.

If you have a relatively smooth uniform piece of leather it should be just fine.
 
I have a slight hijack of your thread.
Where does one find leather to make strops with?
Shoe repair shop, JoAnn Fabrics, on line sites.
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks,
Lenny
 
Lenny said:
I have a slight hijack of your thread.
Where does one find leather to make strops with?
Shoe repair shop, JoAnn Fabrics, on line sites.
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks,
Lenny
Click to expand...

Tandy Leather (stores or online), Hobby Lobby or any hobby/craft store will likely carry some. Woodcraft's online site also has leather for stropping, but it's a bit pricier than you'd find at Tandy or elsewhere. Look for vegetable-tanned (or 'bark-tanned') leather. This is very common, so finding it shouldn't be hard. The veg-tanned leather still retains the natural silicates, which are the very fine natural abrasives in leather. Other tanning methods (like chrome tanning or other chemical methods) will strip the leather of most of the silicates. The others will work fine, if you plan to use stropping compound with them.

The leather I use is from Tandy. I picked up a section of 6-7 oz. leather (about 5.5 square feet of it) for about $17. Still have a long ways to go, before I'll use all that up.

Horsehide is considered to be the absolute best for bare-leather stropping (without compound). But, it's expensive.
 
I do plan on using compound on the strop.
So, can I use either of the leather types then?
Lenny
 
Lenny said:
I do plan on using compound on the strop.
So, can I use either of the leather types then?
Lenny
Click to expand...

Yes. With compound, you can strop on just about any relatively flat, smooth surface. Anything that will give the compound something in which to embed itself and hold. Some use wood, others use cardboard or paper, most use leather. Mainly comes down to preference and convenience. Sanding the smooth side of the leather a little bit, with some medium or fine grit sandpaper, will give it a velvety 'nap', which holds compound very well. Again, that's a preference thing. Not necessary, but it works well.

Leathers that have been specially prepared for stropping (bare), won't benefit from sanding. They're prepared in such a way as to concentrate the natural silicates on the surface. Sanding will remove a lot of it, so you want to avoid sanding those. Plain old veg-tanned leather hasn't been prepped like that. The natural silicates are more evenly distributed through the thickness of the leather, so sanding doesn't really degrade it much (if at all).
 
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