Question about Stropping Compounds

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plainjoe

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Feb 8, 2011
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Hey, hows it goin. Am in process of making a strop. Have leather+wood. The only thing I can find in this town that might work is a chrome polish paste at NAPA. Might it be better than nothing for right now??
I did just find, (in Great Falls-110mi away) a small tool shop that sell an Aluminum Oxide Powder. No grit size labeled. Says on bottle for woodworking and leather tools. Any thoughts on this one??
I do plan on ordering some green compound and a 8" strop from sharpeningsupplies.com when my wallet allows. I need something I can get easily that will work for now.
I realize you can't say for certain that either one is alright, your best guess will be appreciated.
ThankYou
 
On one hand you can try anything, but the grit size of the stropping compounds are so small. I just don't think you could guage a comparison by "feel".
Just go ahead an wait for the compound, or determine the grit of your other options.
If you need to strop something in the meantime, try some cardboard, it works.
 
I have stropped on my jeans, newspaper and an old belt - ALL made a nice difference in the finished edge.
I imagine (my guess) is this initial set-up is well worth trying. Do a before/after test on some paper.
 
Order online?
I know it's not the best, but I order a lot of this type of stuff from amazon. A Prime account (like 80 bucks a year) gets you free shipping on almost everything. 2 day delivery too - just a thought...
 
My first (and believe it or not, probably my finest) strop was an old leather belt; I sanded it to a nice even velvety texture and screwed it into a 1x2" piece of wood, then cut the belt to be even with the wood. I kept it 3' long as it gives some nice long strokes and seems to work pretty fast. I built a stand so it sits on my coffee table at about a 45 degree angle allowing me to strop while sitting on my couch. It's ugly but works really well.. The key is to find a well worn real leather belt. I suggest some garage sales or salvation army, old school work belts would probably be ideal.
 
plainjoe said:
Hey, hows it goin. Am in process of making a strop. Have leather+wood. The only thing I can find in this town that might work is a chrome polish paste at NAPA. Might it be better than nothing for right now??
I did just find, (in Great Falls-110mi away) a small tool shop that sell an Aluminum Oxide Powder. No grit size labeled. Says on bottle for woodworking and leather tools. Any thoughts on this one??
I do plan on ordering some green compound and a 8" strop from sharpeningsupplies.com when my wallet allows. I need something I can get easily that will work for now.
I realize you can't say for certain that either one is alright, your best guess will be appreciated.
ThankYou
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You pose an interesting question. Plenty of people use all kinds of compounds for stropping, but most of them are made specifically for lapping or polishing in the first place. What to use if you're relatively isolated and don't have mail-order as an option (at least temporarily)? At first I thought it would be fairly easy to come up with some suggestions, but not so much. If you have climbing chalk (weight-lifting chalk is probably the same stuff), that can be used. It's magnesium carbonate and is used commercially for some metal finishing operations. Another possibility is billiard chalk (the stuff for the tip, not your hands), which is silica, aluminum oxide, and some pigment. For the leather, I've had real good luck sticking a piece of thick leather to a board and giving it a good rub-down with a Silicone carbide bench stone (or 200 grit sandpaper wrapped around a block) running under warm water. Go until the nap is low, tight and uniform and let it dry - ready for action.

HH
 
i know its kind of cheating, but if you sign up for amazon moms (its free) you get 3 months of prime membership which gives you free 2 day shipping, not sure but i think if you use it to purchase anything for over $25 (combined) they give you another month free. maybe it has to be baby related or household related, but as i am learning even items you think would be to expensive because of what they weigh are dirt cheap (i.e special laundry soap $12 locally vs. $26 for 4 on amazon)
 
If you wish, you could simply buy some sheets of leather off of eBay and use Sears' green & white buffing compound on just that. So long as the surface you're stropping on is perfectly flat, there shouldn't be too much concern about glueing the leather onto wood.

But if you have money to shell out, you could always look at what chefknivestogo.com have to sell. I personally went for the hand american honing base, horse leather, honing films, and diamond sprays.
 
I got 1.5oz of .3micron chrom oxide from this site a year or two back and still have about 80% of it despite having worked on a LOT of knives and axes: http://www.japaneseknifesharpeningstore.com/product-p/cropow1.5.htm

Most green stropping compounds aren't actually 100% chromium oxide, let alone the same particle size. A lot of the green stropping compounds advertised to contain .5micron chromium oxide actually also contains aluminum oxide of MUCH higher grit size. Look it up - I believe the thread where I read about this was directly in reference to the compound bars sold by Lee Valley
 
Noctis3880 said:
But if you have money to shell out, you could always look at what chefknivestogo.com have to sell. I personally went for the hand american honing base, horse leather, honing films, and diamond sprays.
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Just curious... Do you put the diamond spray on your horsehide, or only on the diamond film?



Stitchawl
 
Ben Dover said:
I use the diamond and CBN spray on horsehide and balsa. :thumbup:
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Horsehide tends to be more expensive than cowhide, but it gets its value from the fact that it has a MUCH higher silicate level. These silicates are much smaller than any compound we can buy today, being between .005 and .05 micron, making it a perfect finishing strop for the very sharpest edge.

The smallest diamond compound that I know of is .25 micron. So if you are using that on top of horsehide, that is effectively the same as silver-plating a piece of gold... Putting a coarser grit on top of an extra-fine grit. I can understand why you'd put it on balsa or cowhide. Why would you want to put it on good horsehide? (HA's horsehide comes from Horween Leather so we know it's really good stuff.)


Stitchawl
 
I blame you Stitch, I can't agree that its a consistent particle size because of random scratching I've seen but horse leather is amazing.

I've pretty much stopped using a compounded strop after my stones and move straight to the horse leather. The sharpness is "different" in a very good way and the speed it works at is surprising to say the least.
 
stitchawl said:
Just curious... Do you put the diamond spray on your horsehide, or only on the diamond film?



Stitchawl
Click to expand...
I use my DMT diamond paste on cowhide leather strops. I use the diamond spray on the honing films and leave the horse butt leather bare for finishing.
 
knifenut1013 said:
I blame you Stitch,
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Glad to be of service. More people need to know the differences between the leathers we use to strop.

I can't agree that its a consistent particle size because of random scratching I've seen but horse leather is amazing.
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No bout adought that! Absotivly amazing stuff for a final finish to the sharpening process. But it's true there is a wide difference in the particle size. As I said in the last post, between .005 - .05 That really is a spread. But fortunately, it's such a small particle that you really need a high powered scope to see its patterns.

I've pretty much stopped using a compounded strop after my stones and move straight to the horse leather. The sharpness is "different" in a very good way and the speed it works at is surprising to say the least.
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Add to that the fact that the better quality horsehide provides better quality stropping too! HandAmerican's horsehide comes from the strip right next to the 'Shell' of the leather from Horween Leather Co., and for a bench mounted strop, is every bit as good as the Shell leather. The Shell is just a bit denser and makes a better free hanging strop. When mounted, you can't tell the difference between them. Unless you can get a boned Cordavan Shell, (which has the very highest silicate count) there is nothing better.



Stitchawl
 
I would need to polish up a edge, strop it on the horse leather (HA, horween), then take some pic's. I would guess on the low of 0.5 but the largest scratches I've seen were more like 3-6 microns. Its something I can easily see without magnification.

The scratching doesn't effect me for my normal sharpening because I'm using the strop after 8k stones. If I go for a full polish though it would ruin the surface finish at 1 micron and less.
 
knifenut1013 said:
I would need to polish up a edge, strop it on the horse leather (HA, horween), then take some pic's. I would guess on the low of 0.5 but the largest scratches I've seen were more like 3-6 microns. Its something I can easily see without magnification.
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Then I would seriously doubt it was from silicates. They just don't naturally occur in that size! This makes me wonder about HA horsehide. Hmmm.....
Keith 'told me' that he gets it from Horween... I never had reason to doubt it before. A scratch 4-6 micron sounds more like some sort of impurity that got on the leather. Contamination from some other compound. How about trying to clean that strop with some really strong cleaner and see if that changes anything.

The Horween Shell leather that I use didn't come from HA. I got it directly from a Horween sales rep, and although my scope only magnifies to 60X, I've never seen any scratching, and even 1mic would show up at that magnification. Granted, the HA leather isn't from the Shell, it's from the Strip, which is right next to the Shell. But the only difference between them should be the density of the leather, with virtually no difference in the silicates.

I wonder what is causing your scratches? Please try cleaning the strop and let us know your results. Natural leather silicates just aren't 3-6 microns in size!


Stitchawl
 
I've tried cleaning (lighter fluid) on both horse hide strops I have (one HA one unknown) with no change. I also get surprising amounts of metal build up on the strop so cleaning is needed regularly. I know its not contaminated and this makes 3 samples from different places all yielding the same results. My strops are all well cared for and kept in sealed bags, I even clean my blades before stropping to not imbed stone dust or metal swarf in the strop.

The scratches are random and the largest ones are few and far between. You can tell its natural because of all the different scratches and style of scratch. When I was looking up info on natural waterstones I found some similar info on how the random particle size in the stone can create a sharper and longer lasting edge. Its said that because the scratch size is random it causes the edge to have varying size teeth that wear at different rates. I don't know why it would make it any sharper but natural stones do have a different edge feel that in relation to the horse leather, I find very similar.

I think something similar is happening with the bare leather. The reason I say that is because what I see vs what I feel. Like my natural stones the look may not be what you expect but the bite from the edge and razor sharpness is unlike anything else. Don't know if any of that will make sense but I really don't know how to describe it.

Anyways... I think my JYD is nice and polished, I'll do some before and after pics when I get off work in a bit.
 
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