Leather Stop: Smooth vs Rough side

K

knife chop

Joined
Feb 11, 2014
Messages
816
Are there any benefits over the other? and does thickness of the leather matter for stropping process?
 
I have very limited strop experience/expertise, but from what I've seen, the rough side can load up more compound than the smooth side. As far as the thickness, if you're mounting it to a hard backing, then thinner leather will deform less and be a "harder" strop, and thicker leather will give more and be a "softer" strop. I would imagine that if you're using the strop like a barber, just pulling the leather tight between two points, then it would be sort of the reverse, where the thinner leather would give more and the thicker would give less.
 
I know in the straight razor world we use the smooth side up... But for knives the rougher side would be fine to bring your edge back.
 
Using the backside of leather is like turning tires inside out and driving on them.
 
For using with white compound (AlO), I use the flesh/nap/rough side of horse butt leather. This produces a slightly more rounding compare to HeavyHanded's Washboard printer paper+AlO (virtually no rounding). However same rounding compare to strop on skin/smooth side of leather + AlO. For diamond/cbn/sic compound, I use skin/smooth side of leather. Actually I prefer using HH's WB top with a printer paper because rounding is the least among all substrates (including hard backings, such as: wood, glass,..)
 
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