What is best strop glue?

7

777zzz

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Oct 31, 2008
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All pieces of leather on my four sided Stropman strop are worn out, so I need to replace them. I will to keep this strop forever, so I will need to replace the leather pieces several times as they wear out. Which glue is a good leather to wood adhesive but will also allow me to remove the leather when I need to replace it?
On Amazon I found medium weight, 1.8mm leather made by Hide & Drink. Does this leather make a good strop? If not, what leather do you suggest? Thanks for any replies.
 
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You might consider using carpet tape for securing the leather to the wood. It's a double-sided tape on a very tough & durable mesh backing. Holds very tight, but it can be peeled off if or when it needs to be (a pair of pliers helps with that). I used to make my own leather-on-wood strops using carpet tape, and that made it relatively easy to remove & replace the leather. Won't have to strip old adhesive off the wood to do it, either. If you're lucky, you might even find some carpet tape at the same width of your strop; mine were on 2.5" oak, and the tape I used was the same width.

If the leather is to be used with compound, most any leather that's as firm as possible will do. You want the leather firm enough that it doesn't compress too much in use, to reduce edge-rounding issues. As long as it's firm, the thickness of the leather doesn't matter too much, except that a thicker piece can be sanded completely clean more often, so you can apply different compound without having to replace the leather. Obviously, you can't sand thin leather very much, without going right through it.
 
I'd use carpet tape or 3M Super 77 adhesive. Even contact cement would work.
 
777zzz said:
I will need to replace the leather pieces several times as they wear out.
Click to expand...
Disclaimer : I no longer strop at all on leather just on fairly fine stones ~ 8000.
When I was fooling around with strops I used this (far left in the photo) and I made a much longer one for at work so the crew and I could strop box knives on.

Now if one were to use horse butt leather which is fairly thick and hard, similar to this one ( know it shouldn't be rough side up) three brass counter sunk head screws on each end is all you need.
If one were to hit a screw it doesn't effect the edge much at all. I've never run off the end and hit a screw and they are down in the leather bellow the surface anyway.
So . . . like that.

You could use a heat activated glue and when you want to pull off the leather you can put the base in the oven after turning it off and it is just warm . . . that is how I get the soles off my shoes to resole them. Been doing that for thirty years /works great.

The soles are held on with Barge contact cement but heck plain old hot glue would work if you work quick.
The Stropping Young Lads.jpg
 
Use the 3M Super 77 spray for sure,if you have never used it do a few test's before gluing the leather.

If you spray the glue on and after 10 minutes it's still wet and slippery you used to much glue,for the the most part it dries in about the amount of time it say's it does on the can but it can vary depending on temp's.
The biggest thing with that glue is don't over do it or it will take forever to dry.

777zzz said:
All pieces of leather on my four sided Stropman strop are worn out, so I need to replace them. I will to keep this strop forever, so I will need to replace the leather pieces several times as they wear out. Which glue is a good leather to wood adhesive but will also allow me to remove the leather when I need to replace it?
On Amazon I found medium weight, 1.8mm leather made by Hide & Drink. Does this leather make a good strop? If not, what leather do you suggest? Thanks for any replies.
Click to expand...
 
so i plan on mounting some strops onto EP blanks, and full size stones onto glass bases. i understand 3m super 77 is the stuff to use. would someone know if that is 3m 77 multipurpose, or permanent, variety?
thanks
 
on further observation, it appears there are two versions, both multipurpose, but one is labelled as industrial grade. so, would it be industrial grade, or the "regular"? thanks
 
I have a nice collection of Like New leather strops (leather on wood) but hardly use them anymore. Instead of glue, double-sided adhesive tape like carpet tape is a good idea. Later, when you renew the leather part, this maintenance process may ruin or compromise the wood surface, so think of using a light-weight non-wood material for the base/backing. There are very tough dense wood materials which can't get compromised by carpet tape tears but they are dense and thus heavy.

Properties of an optimal base/backing: it should be super flat, super smooth, hard, dry (glue or tape should stick to it!), but also light-weight and should come in different form factors. And be solvent-resistant (acetone, alcohol, oil, etc). If you're a beginner and follow textbook-learned stropping only, then weight and form factor won't matter much. All these property requirements are, in general, met by the literally natural choice of (optimal) wood material. It's also better available than alternative materials (aluminum plate, polymer plate, etc).

Last year i proposed the PTS method. As it turns out, that works best only with the guided sharpening system.

Nowadays when i strop, i stroke the knife edge with a (compound-loaded) wooden paint stir stick and that does it for me. Over time I've become more pragmatic about my sharpening and stropping. All freehand, of course.
 
What your seeing is a case of same crap different pile.

In Canada are's is in a burgundy colored can and in the states it can in a black can or a burgundy colored can as well,there is no difference between the industrial or the regular stuff,it's just marketing hype for the different place's it's sold.

That glue is what edge pro say's to use to mount stones with and that's also the glue that most people grab for first to glue their stones and strop's with,I also know Thomas for Jende Industries and that's what they use to glue all their stones with as well.

Don't worry about witch version you buy they are both the same.

studio398 said:
on further observation, it appears there are two versions, both multipurpose, but one is labelled as industrial grade. so, would it be industrial grade, or the "regular"? thanks
Click to expand...
 
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