Will simple materials make an effective strop?

S

SwampDude

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Nov 2, 2013
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I've been looking for materials to build several strops, and I acquired some leather and a heavy paint stir stick for starters. The leather is a $16 belt from Walmart (size 48!) and the 5 gal. bucket stir stick is free from Ace Hardware. Before I put them together to form a strop, will leather belt material that has been dyed on both sides work?




I will use the rougher, under side of the belt if you folks say this leather makes a suitable strop. What do you think? All I need at this point is some Gorilla Glue to join the pieces into a strop.
 
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Simple materials do work, thanks to HeavyHanded on here I've come to appreciate stropping with paper :thumbup:
 
If this means anything, my current favorite stropping method involves a single thickness of paper over a piece of scrap plywood, and some white compound purchased at the local home center. Some temporary spray adhesive to stick the paper to the plywood adds a little more, both in cost and performance-wise. But that's about as simple as can be. :)

So long as your leather is just dyed, and not waxed or coated with plastic (some cheaper belts are), you should be OK when using it with compound. Waxy or plastic coatings interfere with the performance of compounds, and will also likely smear themselves all over your blade. Sometimes you can sand the leather to remove plastic coatings, or use alcohol or other solvents to remove most of the waxy stuff, if either is on the belt.


David
 
Yes, I've used an old leather belt for stroping for years. Sometimes a long section with the buckle still attached to use as
an attachment to my workbench. Mostly a piece of the belt (smooth side) glued to a paint paddle as you said. Works
wonderfully. Also, sometimes will just strop it lightly on my old jeans (always away from the edge needless to say :-)

Rich
 
I often use a plain brown paper shopping bag as a strop. Equivalent to 2500 grit. Lunch bags are often finer.
 
As everyone has said, it'll work just fine.

One thing I've started using is the cardboard from the center of my paper towel roll. I'll cut down the center then wrap it around the edge of my granite counter top which fits pretty well since it's rounded. I use it without compound and it works pretty well. Kinda cool because I have a new one every other day. :)
 
Thanks for your responses.

I guess part of the appeal of making a strop is...making a strop. This is all new and stimulating to me, even in the simplest form.

Tonight at Ace Hardware I found myself at the axe/hatchet display, feeling edges and examining handle fit. I wanted to see what wedges they had. These are new interests to me. [By the way, the few axe edges I have created seem superior to the hardware store models with respect to sharpness.]

I may graduate to using paper and other surfaces instead of a leather strop, but I'm just getting started. At this point, creating multiple 10"-12" leather strops for $16 plus the cost of a little glue feels pretty good.
 
SwampDude said:

I will use the rougher, under side of the belt if you folks say this leather makes a suitable strop. What do you think? All I need at this point is some Gorilla Glue to join the pieces into a strop.[/QUOTE]
The debate goes on...rough up/smooth up. I wanted to know also so I checked what I could on the subject and found no clear consensus, mostly opinions. I chose to try smooth side up using (because I had some around the house) Gorilla Glue as my adhesive. I first used a sanding block to uniform and rough the surface enough to hold the compound. I say use your belt whichever way makes your boat float but sand the surface to get rid of whatever impurities maybe on it.
Photos of all my strops except one I made for recurved blades. Hope this gives you some ideas.
Btw, my favorites one is the one in the center with the lanyard.

[URL=http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/gcf4him/media/Strops_zps0ac52697.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t604/gcf4him/Strops_zps0ac52697.jpg[/URL][/IMG]
Click to expand...
 
I prefer smooth side up. Get some stropping compound. Work it into the leather. When the compound stopps cutting, and gets sticky and glossy and black just rub it off with a paper towel and re apply.

Use a light touch, no pressure.

You can actually strop right on the balsam stick. Just rub some compound on it. I get great results with the paint sticks with green compound.
 
I've found that even things like a newspaper folded over to about 4-5 layers and put at the edge of a table with some green buffing compound would yield pretty good results for stropping (better than a piece of MDF which I used to use). Not the most durable option, but it's certainly one of the cheapest materials, and will last you for a bit so long as you're careful not to tear it.
 
A section of Hard Felt glued to the rough side of that leather belt makes a good dual purpose strop. Coarse/fine Stitch a loop in the end of the belt and it can be worn.
 
SwampDude- keep in mind that, for the majority of uses, aside from carving knives and straight razors which you keep extremely sharp as maintenance, the strop is useful for edge refinement only. You'll find that they work best on an edge that is already sharp. The sharper, before you strop, the better.

I've yet to get a dull-ish blade sharp with only a strop and compound.

As for nap or flesh side up, I found a compromise of leather with velvety nap to be best. Like very short fibers that barely move when you move your hand across them. Let me know if that doesn't make sense.
 
Stand Straight said:
The debate goes on...rough up/smooth up. I wanted to know also so I checked what I could on the subject and found no clear consensus, mostly opinions. I chose to try smooth side up using (because I had some around the house) Gorilla Glue as my adhesive. I first used a sanding block to uniform and rough the surface enough to hold the compound. I say use your belt whichever way makes your boat float but sand the surface to get rid of whatever impurities maybe on it.
Photos of all my strops except one I made for recurved blades. Hope this gives you some ideas.
Btw, my favorites one is the one in the center with the lanyard.

[/IMG]
Click to expand...

Nice assortment. Where did you find the paddles used in your home-made strops? I'd like to make several that are wider than my paint stir stick, if I can find leather to fit them.
 
Use smooth leather, compressed if you can find it. Glue a strip on each side of your paint stirrer. One side with flesh side of leather out and one side with hair side out. Rub some white buffing compound into the side with flesh side of leather out. Use this side to start stropping your blade then finish on the hair side with no compound on it. Before stropping make sure you take your honing down to an extra fine stone at least. Nothing cuts like a polished edge.
Have a Merry Christmas.
Echols Made Knives
 
Strigamort said:
SwampDude- keep in mind that, for the majority of uses, aside from carving knives and straight razors which you keep extremely sharp as maintenance, the strop is useful for edge refinement only. You'll find that they work best on an edge that is already sharp. The sharper, before you strop, the better.

I've yet to get a dull-ish blade sharp with only a strop and compound.

As for nap or flesh side up, I found a compromise of leather with velvety nap to be best. Like very short fibers that barely move when you move your hand across them. Let me know if that doesn't make sense.
Click to expand...

Actually, I don't understand how leather stropping without compound does anything to a steel edge. Leather with a "velvety" nap would seem too soft to provide a sharpening effect, unless this nap holds the compound in the most effective way.

The abrasive nature of compound makes sense, if in fact thats what compounds contribute (abrasiveness) to the stropping process; I'm thinking the compound adds a fine polishing constituent to the leather..
 
SwampDude said:
Actually, I don't understand how leather stropping without compound does anything to a steel edge. Leather with a "velvety" nap would seem too soft to provide a sharpening effect, unless this nap holds the compound in the most effective way.

The abrasive nature of compound makes sense, if in fact thats what compounds contribute (abrasiveness) to the stropping process; I'm thinking the compound adds a fine polishing constituent to the leather..
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The leather contains very, very fine silicates; they are themselves abrasive, and much smaller than particles found in stropping/polishing compounds. Regardless of the 'nap' of the leather, the silicates can still provide some polishing effect on steel. As mentioned, however, the edge needs to be ready for it, before stropping. The extremely fine nature of the silicates means they'll abrade, but only at a very fine level. This is why bare leather 'doesn't work' for some; either because the edge isn't refined enough to benefit from it, or because the steel's wear-resistance preclude's any real benefit from the silicates in leather (steels with high vanadium carbide content, for example).


David
 
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SwampDude, if you like, send me an email with your address and I'll send you a bit of the leather I use for my strops. Aside from the qualities I mentioned, it's also extremely thin. It truly is excellent strop leather.

You can kind of see how thin it is in the pic.

IMAG1175_zps620d0c99.jpg


The only thing I wish is that it wasn't black, but I haven't found it again at Tandy, let alone in another color.
 
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fsatsil said:
I've been using a home made strop for years but I recently came across a strop that might even be even cheaper then making your own. I like the flexcut gold compound but I have no idea if the actual strop is any good. Has anyone tried one of these?
http://www.flexcut.com/pw14-flexcut-knife-strop/
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I bought one of these recently to keep in a small kit in my truck. If I've got a little time to kill away from home, working on an edge is a good way to do it.

I bought my flexcut strop at the local Rockler woodworking store. It's well made, so I'm thinking it should work fine. The gold compound that came with it is something I have no experience with; in fact, I didn't know the gold stuff existed.
 
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