Strop question

Re: Strop question--Latigo works

Bruce McCrory

You can glue nearly any thickness to a smooth backer.

I use bulk latigo strip I got for belts, however it stains fabric. It's substantial, consistent, full grain leather, about the maximum weight and nearly 2-inches wide and up to 3/16th in. thick. Well over 9 oz. A bit narrow for razor strops, but works fine loose and you get both sides.

Some people go to extremes with a leather fetish but what I use is the same that tanned FIL's own hide.

Note: I would restrict it to full grain leather, which includes the natural top--the whole moo skin.

My ten year old strop

Jim Matthews

It's a "heavy" 16th thick.

It was stiff, like cardboard when glued down.

Most leather offcuts are too supple for this task.

Re: Strop question

Curt Putnam

My reading leads me to believe the real question is whether to use leather at all? For chhisels and plane blades that are not be unicorned, it seems that the best substrates for green compound are hard maple and mdf. YMWV

Re: Strop question

John Aniano in central NJ

Hi Tom,

For basic blade stropping, I use leather that is about 3/16"-1/4" thick. I prefer the smooth side doing the stropping, so the flesh side is glued to the wood substrate. I use anything handy, 1/4"-1/2" thick plywood works for me. Do remember to make the strop longer than the leather so you can drill a hole for hanging the strop in a clean location - I have screws in the side of my workbench leg where I store the strops. Hanging them keeps them cleaner.

A good source for thick leather is a flea market. Look for new or used weight belts. Used for supporting one's stomach/back when lifting weights. The leather is wide enough to get two 1-1/2" wide strops, maybe more, from a typical belt.

I have other strops I use for polishing gold, silver, mother of pearl and other materials for bowmaking and I make these out of chamois or deer skin. I glue the smooth side down for these strops. Just works for me.

Hope this helps,

John

Re: Strop question

Jack Dover

Tried leather, heavy denim and bare woods, both soft and hard, the only difference was that leather could be cleaned, denim and wood not so much. I decided to save me some hassle looking for a fresh offcut

Re: Strop question

David Weaver

I like a little thicker and bovine for a bare strop (backed by wood, any scrap is fine) and thinner and a little harder for compound.

Like John implies, I'd rather find a decent supply inexpensively than find some specific leather and weight and be pointed to something expensive.

I've bought veg tanned (bovine) and butt strip (horse) on ebay or other places on line for a tiny fraction of the cost of leather elsewhere and if I've had the desire for razor strops (no wrinkles at all can be tolerated), have found the retailers amenable to making sure they pick a nice butt strip that's got at least two clear long runs in place.

Price fluctuates, but I recall getting large butt strips for $15 - $25, and veg tanned around $8 a square foot in 8/9 ounce weight (butt strip is more dense - I've gotten the same weight in both types - easier to remember) and both work fine.

But it doesn't matter that much in the end. For compound use that's more like honing and less than just burr removal, hard softwoods or soft hardwoods are preferable to me (with autosol or stronger cutting bar compound).

Re: Strop question

Bruce McCrory

I used to work, and work, and,,, . . . . over hard metal plates, with the finest diamond, with other compounds, and never got a good edge.

Even an edge from a #1000 stone will get viciously sharp after a few strokes on leather.

Re: Strop question

Jack Dover

That used to be the case for me when I wasn't getting all the way to the edge when sharpening. After realizing and fixing that a 1200 (? DMT extra-fine) diamond stone would produce the keenest edge for all my practical purposes. It's just at some point I have noticed that a stropped edge seems to be holding for longer (for reasons David W has explained in his videos), that was the primary reason why I kept stropping.

The thicket strop I have is from 8oz random ebay leather, glued to MDF with PVA it had zero give, so I don't think leather thickness is a huge factor. When a chisel was sharpened properly and stropped, it would produce that oily-looking shiny shavings - again, I'm not doing genes manipulation in my shop, so I didn't really care whether theoretically I could go even sharper with a different leather. Strops are consumables, so the cheaper the better it is.