Want a good strop. Ideas?

A

Alacrity

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Aug 25, 2013
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Hey, I recently got my sharp maker and dmt stones and have been having a blast making my knives shaving sharp, or at least close. I want to move on to the next step and get a strop. I am not against making a strop if someone can tell me where to get quality leather, preferably not super expensive. I will also buy a strop already made if someone can point me in the right direction for that. I want my knives to be hair popping sharp.

I will also take suggestions for new stones I'd like to expand my freehand stones, as I only have a dmt course diasharp for reprofiling. This may need to become a separate thread but again, all suggestions welcome!

Thanks,
Alacrity
 
For many decades now I've used whatever leather cowhide belt is holding up my pants. I suppose you could visit with a shoe-maker and get him to stitch up something of your own design and choosing, but if you like leather belts maybe buy one for yourself and one for your dreams (to paraphrase from the Bond movie You Only Live Twice) .
 
You can start using a old leather belt for a strop or cardboard? Both are free! You may want to add some green chrome rouge to the leather but its not nessasary to do a great job of deburring your edges with edge trailing strokes on leather or cardboard.
 
I use an old leather belt. I've also thought about getting some leather from tandy or some place like that and mounting it to wood.

I also prefer loading my strop with a polishing compound prior to stropping. I find that it reduces the time and effort required to get a good edge.
 
You need to look at your technique, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to shave and slice paper off a coarse DMT, the finer stones arnt for increasing sharpness, they're for refinin the edge farther. You shoud be at the sharpness you want after your coarse/fine stones, the higher grits and stroping are for polishing/smoothig the already apex'd and de-bured edge.

But yes I agree I use an old belt I picked up for $2 at good will and mounted to two sides of an MDF plank.
 
Yeah I make sure to slice paper after the dmt, but I struggle making the burr totally disappear on the stones and I'd like a strop. A belt would work, but where could I buy good leather? Websites or popular stores would work. Or where could I get a quality strop? I'd prefer good leather so I can make a strop attached to a block.
 
The only leather strop I would consider would be Kangaroo leather sold by chefknivestogo and jendeindustries. Ive already discussed why old leather belts are a terrible idea.....

What compound for you to get would depend on what your finishing stone you use. It needs to be something that lines up with that.
 
Alacrity said:
Yeah I make sure to slice paper after the dmt, but I struggle making the burr totally disappear on the stones and I'd like a strop. A belt would work, but where could I buy good leather? Websites or popular stores would work. Or where could I get a quality strop? I'd prefer good leather so I can make a strop attached to a block.
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That's the kicker. If having trouble minimizing burrs before stropping, chances are stropping on leather or other softish material won't do it either. If burrs are relatively thick or heavy, strops have a tough time removing them without otherwise over-polishing other clean portions of the edge. One way to 'cheat the technique' a little bit, is to practice your same stropping technique on some high-grit wet/dry sandpaper (1000+). Pay attention to how you use and regulate pressure, and utilize that to gradually abrade heavy burrs away. The thinner the burr becomes, the lighter you should go with pressure, finishing with feather-light strokes. Follow that with additional light-pressure practice on strops with and without compound. Practicing in this manner will train your hands to the use of pressure, and that translates into better results on stones with edge-leading technique as well (this is what I discovered for myself, after OBSESSIVELY practicing stropping for a long time).

'Good leather' only needs to be relatively smooth (not bumpy) and uniform in texture, when using it as a bed for stropping compound. Price need not play any role in this at all. My best strops for use with compound, quite literally, are my leather belt (veg-tanned, sueded side), and some balsa blocks I picked up at a popular hobby/craft chain store. More expensive strops in exotic leathers (horsehide, etc) are valued for how they perform without compound, due to the natural abrasives (silicates) in the leather, and sometimes also due to extensive processing of the leather to enhance the density/firmness/concentration of silicates in the surface of it. But those still won't work unless the edge is ready from the stones. While learning stropping technique, there's not much value in spending big $$ on strops, as the prep work done on stones and the overall skill/technique play into the results much more than anything else. An obscenely-priced strop still won't work if technique is bad, or if the edge isn't ready for it.


David
 
Okay awesome. Ill do some more work tonight on the stones and see if I can get the burr as fine as possible. I'll try the sandpaper as well. I'm practicing on some pretty crappy knives ATM, but I want to eventually get to where I can sharpen my nicer knives with confidence.
So I've read all about burrs and I feel like I can feel and see them most of the time, but what about when I get them really fine? That's kinda why I'm looking into strops.

Thanks again for all the help and advice. Keep it coming :)
 
Alacrity said:
Okay awesome. Ill do some more work tonight on the stones and see if I can get the burr as fine as possible. I'll try the sandpaper as well. I'm practicing on some pretty crappy knives ATM, but I want to eventually get to where I can sharpen my nicer knives with confidence.
So I've read all about burrs and I feel like I can feel and see them most of the time, but what about when I get them really fine? That's kinda why I'm looking into strops.

Thanks again for all the help and advice. Keep it coming :)
Click to expand...

I like to use phonebook paper to test cutting, as the burrs get smaller and harder to see or feel otherwise. A very SLOW slicing cut, from heel to tip, into the edge of a phonebook page will reveal a lot of what's going on. If the edge catches or snags in the paper, focus on that spot on the edge for further burr cleanup. If the edge just slides over the paper without cutting, chances are it's not fully apexed, or it's been over-polished or rounded from the stropping. If the edge is cutting cleanly and repeatedly along the full edge length, odds are you're in good shape. Don't be shy about FREQUENTLY checking for burrs this way, after every 1-3 passes on the strop (I shred a lot of phonebooks doing this ;)). When the edge gets very close to being 'there', only a pass or two will make a big difference, and you don't want to needlessly go too far with stropping beyond that point.


David
 
Alacrity said:
Hey, I recently got my sharp maker and dmt stones and have been having a blast making my knives shaving sharp, or at least close. I want to move on to the next step and get a strop. I am not against making a strop if someone can tell me where to get quality leather, preferably not super expensive. I will also buy a strop already made if someone can point me in the right direction for that. I want my knives to be hair popping sharp.

I will also take suggestions for new stones I'd like to expand my freehand stones, as I only have a dmt course diasharp for reprofiling. This may need to become a separate thread but again, all suggestions welcome!

Thanks,
Alacrity
Click to expand...

You can start out by just wrapping some paper around your stone and strop on that. Very simple, very easy. Move on to leather when you have a better working knowledge - leather comes in a wide variety of densities and textures, paper not so much. It'll be a lot more forgiving of pressure as well, something leather is not. Save the leather for a final polishing step with plain leather, compound will work on many surfaces, leather maybe not the best choice for all.

Also, the thread linked in my signature might be helpful.
 
You can buy a few pieces of brand new but left over/scrap leather large enough for making a decent size strop for a few bucks at your local tack (horse stuff) shop or shoe repair store and a scrap piece of MDF for a few ¢ from the cut-offs bin at Home Depot/lowes. All in all you can have a nice strop with new leather compariable with a store bought strop for under $10 locally if you don't mind driving around and and using your kendergarden glueing skills.
 
A nice stiff cardboard is great. Look for stuff like fridge boxes. Also good is strips of balsa. They can be had from many hobby stores for just a few bucks for a nice large strip.

It would be good to invest in some compound, too. I like a wax based compound for ease of application. If you go with normal compounds, get green and black. Black is nice and coarse, and the green finishes nicely. Good luck on your stropping endeavor.
 
Texas Knifemaker's Supply and Jantz Knifemakers Supply both sell 12"x12" squares of good quality vegetable tanned leather for sheath making. Less than $15 and you can cut it down into 3 or 4 good sized bench strops.
But....... for a top quality strop that is really effective, you MUST do a bit of easy prep to the leather first. Here's how:
1. After you've cut the leather to size ( 12"x3" or 12"x4) Run it under water for just 2-3 seconds, wetting it well front and back. You'll see it change color. Then set it aside for an hour or two.
2. When you see that the color is changing back to the lighter shade, the leather will be almost the consistency of modeling clay. (Called 'casing' the leather.) Now take a roller of some sort (a heavy baking rolling pin is perfect for this... the heavier the better!) and start to roll the leather on a smooth counter top or cutting board, compressing it. The more you roll it, the better your strop will perform. THIS STEP IS VITAL! This is what prevents the leather from rolling over your edge if you use too much pressure when stropping. When people talk about leather being too soft a surface when they strop, it's a sign that they never bothered to compress the leather before they glued it to a block, or never used a strop that was well made. "Cased" leather can be compressed into an extremely dense, hard surface so there is little chance of it rolling over an edge. Properly prepared leather is almost as hard as wood, but is more forgiving. Very few pre-made strops sold today use leather that's been cased, which is why a properly home-made strop will perform better and cost much less.

Casing the leather serves another function. It causes the natural silicates in the leather to migrate to the surface. These natural silicates are what allow high quality horsehide barber strops to create such a fine finished edge. (Horsehide has the highest concentration of natural silicates of all the available leathers.) The silicates are much smaller than most compounds, so using a cased leather strop as the 'final' step in the sharpening process results in the very best edges. This is something barbers have known for hundreds of years and why the barber always strops his razor on a bare leather strop before shaving a customer.

3. After 15-20 minutes of rolling your damp leather, allow it to dry naturally and slowly on a flat surface. Turn it over every few hours so both sides get exposed to the air. After a day or two, the leather will be dry enough to glue to a board. Almost any liquid glue will work; Elmer's White glue, contact cement, etc. Just be sure to apply the glue in a thin layer so there will be no bumps. Glue the rough side down to the board, rolling over it to insure even contact and a smooth finish. Allow to dry, then trim the edges flush with the board. You can make this 'board' as fancy or as rough as you wish. A plain 1"x3" piece of pine or cedar works well and cost's almost nothing, and just needs be cut to length. A nice piece of walnut or maple, carved and shaped looks prettier but doesn't work any better.

4. Using either a leather conditioner such as Lexol or a soft shoe 'cream' (NOT SHOE POLISH!) work just a small amount into the surface of the strop. Don't wet down the strop with the stuff! If using shoe cream, less than 1/4 a teaspoon will be more than enough for the whole strop. Allow this to sit overnight.

5. You will now have 3-4 effective strops. Save one to use bare, and choose which ever compounds you want to use for the others. Keep them separated so that the different grits of the compounds don't cross-contaminate the other strops. Properly prepared leather has been the choice for strops for hundreds of years. For a reason...


Stitchawl
 
You guys are awesome. Thanks for all the advice I'm going to use it. When, not if, I get hair popping sharp knives ill post here to let y'all know you've really helped. Thanks again! Ill work more on getting finer burrs and now ill prep my leather for strops first. Thanks so much.

As always, other viewpoints and advice are appreciated:) I love learning this stuff
 
Sadden said:
The only leather strop I would consider would be Kangaroo leather sold by chefknivestogo and jendeindustries. Ive already discussed why old leather belts are a terrible idea.....

What compound for you to get would depend on what your finishing stone you use. It needs to be something that lines up with that.
Click to expand...


Lots of ways to skin a cat (especially if you have a very sharp knife).

I've never used Kangaroo for stropping.

I also made a cheap strop out of a nice brand new leather belt I broke the buckle on. It is full grain leather. It was never cased (as far as I can tell, because I did not do it). But over the years the surface has become more firm, and solid.

I just watch my technique, and make sure not to wrap the edge.

I also use Balsa strips with great success, (and sandpaper to fix edges, or my Belt sander).

After 8 years or so, the strop is about ready to replace. Three of the sides are pretty chewed up from careless or tired stropping.



Ghetto strop (the whittled hair is there in the pic if your eyes are sharp).

IMG_4032.jpg



You can make due with what you have, and it is easy to over strop, making your edge not cut as well.
 
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