Bear in mind I'm a relative beginner at stropping. The stuff I do works for me, but it may not be correct or the best way to strop. I can now get my Barkies and a couple of standard grind edges to "pop" hair, but not consistently.
I've heard guys say to prep the leather with a light coating of oil before loading the rouge (buffing compound). I don;t do that. I warm my strop under a 100watt shop light for several minutes until the leather is nice and warm. Then I load the rouge and warm again.
I have red rouge in the shop for tool maintenance and general polishing. I don;t use it on my strops. My wife used to work for a jeweler's supply in El Paso and they had 3 jewel-smiths on-site. They'd use it on buffers to polish rings and other jewelery after re-sizing, repairs, or manufacturing.
I use the green rouge for initial stropping, then go to white rouge (again on smooth-side leather). Black is more coarse than green and, if I had some, I'd probably use it as the initial strop, followed by green and maybe then white.
I wouldn;t hang a strop like a belt. I suppose an expert could make it work well, but I think it would be too easy to round over the edge using a flexible strop. You'd be taking two steps forward and three back. Even with a flat strop mounted to wood I believe you need to be careful at the beginning and (especially) the end of each stroke, to avoid lifting the spine even minutely and rounding the edge.
I will sometimes strop on the rough side but, as I get better at this stropping, I use the smooth more and more often. Now, the rough is used to remove light scratches from the blade and other light maintenance.
I've heard guys say to prep the leather with a light coating of oil before loading the rouge (buffing compound). I don;t do that. I warm my strop under a 100watt shop light for several minutes until the leather is nice and warm. Then I load the rouge and warm again.
I have red rouge in the shop for tool maintenance and general polishing. I don;t use it on my strops. My wife used to work for a jeweler's supply in El Paso and they had 3 jewel-smiths on-site. They'd use it on buffers to polish rings and other jewelery after re-sizing, repairs, or manufacturing.
I use the green rouge for initial stropping, then go to white rouge (again on smooth-side leather). Black is more coarse than green and, if I had some, I'd probably use it as the initial strop, followed by green and maybe then white.
I wouldn;t hang a strop like a belt. I suppose an expert could make it work well, but I think it would be too easy to round over the edge using a flexible strop. You'd be taking two steps forward and three back. Even with a flat strop mounted to wood I believe you need to be careful at the beginning and (especially) the end of each stroke, to avoid lifting the spine even minutely and rounding the edge.