Making a strop from a leather belt? Goodwill?

[Gary007]

Think I saw a post on the forums about making your own strop from a leather belt from Goodwill. So, ... any type of leather, anything to watch out for, any general advice? Fix it to a piece of wood? Any input would be appreciated.

I want to try stropping. Thought about going to LeeValley.com and buying their strop package for $23.99 + $8.00 in S&H which includes the compound.

But a leather belt from Goodwill for a few bucks sounds like a good deal. (and Mother's compound?)

 

[Saunterer]

I just convexed my first blade last week using various grits of sandpaper finishing up with a leather belt strop.

I took an old leather belt that I had in the closet and roughed the backside of it up with a rasp. Then I nailed it down on a piece of 1 x 4 I had laying around and charged it up using some aluminum oxide I had from my wheels.

Followed all the advice found on the various forums, and that final leather strop made my blade scary, stupid sharp. Been having fun stropping everything in the house now.

Go for it, with an old blade and an old belt to see if it works for you.

 

[Guyon]

I can recommend these guys for some decent strop leather: http://www.handamerican.com/products.html

Recently, for about $10 plus shipping, I ordered a square foot of their 1/8" stock. I got the "natural" honing leather since I'm using pastes on my strops. They also offer "conditioned" leather that is more like barber's strop leather.

They will cut it any way you like, so I got mine cut into four 3" x 12" strips. In two strips, I put grommets on each end in order to make hanging strops for backpacking/camping. The other two strips, I plan to mount/glue to a piece of nice wood--one with the rougher side up, the other with the slicker side up. Should make a nice paddle strop.

 

[Jeff Clark]

Look for a belt that is a single piece of real leather. I would want it between 1 and 3 inches wide. One side should be plain unpolished leather (as flat as possible--without ridges or rough parts along the edges). The other side should be polished, but as close to natural leather as you can find. For a little casual use you can often loop the belt over a door knob on an open door and stretch the belt out with your left hand. Then strop with your right hand. This allows you to use either the smooth or the more natural side of the belt. You can experiment with applying some green buffing compound to the belt. You can also take a chuck of 2x4 lumber and tack or glue the belt to that (if you tack, do it at the two ends of the strop, not in the middle). You probably want about a 12-inch length of strop. If you like both sides of your belt you can cut it into 12-inch lengths and make two strops, one for each type of surface.