Strop maintenance roughing the leather?

Joe Duder

Joe Duder

Joined
Jan 22, 2013
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I've been using my strop for a while now and the leather is getting smoother than I prefer. Looking for a good way to rough it up. Meaning- to bring out the original rough suede texture.

How do you roughin' up your strop?

How do you clean your strop? I'm using 91% Isopropyl alcohol and heavy duty Scotch Brite pads. It does work, I just want to know if there's a better way.
 
What side of the leather are you using?

You can use sandpaper to rough up the surface but I wouldn't recommend it.

Lighter fluid or WD-40 on a rag works well to remove compound and clean a strop.
 
I use 80 or 120 grit (garnet or AlO) sandpaper. Loose grits are big and easy fall off, thus not contaminate the strop. Scotch Brite contains very fine Aluminum Oxide abrasive, so make sure to remove/clean all loose grits.
 
I've used sandpaper to put some nap in mine. Some basic coarse/medium grit sandpaper of the type made for wood will work. I wrap a piece around a block of wood and scrub the leather with it. Doesn't take much time or work to get it done. The coarser grit is easier to clean up from the leather, if particles come off the paper (finer grits might embed into it, which obviously isn't good for stropping). Vacuuming the leather works quite well to clean it up after the sanding.

All the above is assuming the strop is just simple leather (veg-tanned, etc.). I don't recommend sanding on a strop of higher grade, such as a dedicated barber's strop or horsehide. Those are processed and finished to a much greater degree, and sanding would likely ruin any benefit from using them.


David
 
I use a Stropman 4stroke variant http://www.stropman.com/4STROKE-Leather-Strop-4STROKE.htm
You can see how shaggy the nap is; I'm trying to get it back to that state, perhaps even rougher. I strop mostly larger fixed blade knives; fiddleback hunter, helle temagami, moras etc. For some reason I think that the shaggier the nap, the better. When I first purchased the strop it was very shaggy and it seemed to work a lot better. It's now at a fine suede consistency and it tends to take longer to get the edge of my blade to my liking.

Thanks for the input. Keep it coming.
 
If what you want is more draw, use a little bit of oil. Neatsfoot and such.
Draw is of course personal thing, but I believe there are no performance benefits to having more draw.
 
Joe Duder said:
I use a Stropman 4stroke variant http://www.stropman.com/4STROKE-Leather-Strop-4STROKE.htm
You can see how shaggy the nap is; I'm trying to get it back to that state, perhaps even rougher. I strop mostly larger fixed blade knives; fiddleback hunter, helle temagami, moras etc. For some reason I think that the shaggier the nap, the better. When I first purchased the strop it was very shaggy and it seemed to work a lot better. It's now at a fine suede consistency and it tends to take longer to get the edge of my blade to my liking.

Thanks for the input. Keep it coming.
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Might just be in need of a cleaning, as suggested earlier. The wipedown with WD-40 on a rag or paper towel usually works pretty well. In fact, you might give that a try first and see if that makes enough of a difference. If you still wish to sand it, it never hurts to clean them before sanding anyway; it'll help avoid grinding a lot of the dirty stuff more deeply into the leather.


David
 
I doubt the nap would come back that heavy, it looks like the wrong side of the leather was glued down. Never understood why you would want that much nap on your stropping surface....
 
knifenut1013 said:
I doubt the nap would come back that heavy, it looks like the wrong side of the leather was glued down. Never understood why you would want that much nap on your stropping surface....
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What side of the leather do you prefer? What works for you? What kind of strop do you use?
I'm fairly new to stropping. I know (at least, I think I know) what works for me, but I'm always trying to expand my horizons.
 
The skin side because its the side you should be using. All that nap does is round your edge.

I have used all kinds of leather with all kinds of compounds. Now I use high quality leather without compound, personally I feel it works better but it also means you must do better on the stone because it won't "fix" anything.

Strops only enhance they don't sharpen. Too often they are used as a crutch to make a edge Sharp.
 
The thought of having a sueded strop makes me shiver... If you need that much friction, stay with your stone longer.
Clean is one thing. A strop should be fairly clean. But rough? No way....


Stitchawl
 
knifenut1013 said:
I have used all kinds of leather with all kinds of compounds. Now I use high quality leather without compound, personally I feel it works better but it also means you must do better on the stone because it won't "fix" anything.
Strops only enhance they don't sharpen. Too often they are used as a crutch to make a edge Sharp.
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Welcome to the 'real world' of stropping. :)


Stitchawl
 
How does the skin side work with coarser finishes? I use the nap with compound when i'm stopping at like a coarse dmt and use white compound. I find it helps keep the tooth.

To the op. How are you applying the compound? Sometime i end up having too much on and it covers the nap. I have an old spoon set aside for scraping the leather to bring up some of the nap. I will also heat up the spoon to help spread some tougher compounds.
 
stitchawl said:
The thought of having a sueded strop makes me shiver... If you need that much friction, stay with your stone longer.
Clean is one thing. A strop should be fairly clean. But rough? No way....


Stitchawl
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'Rough' is sort of a misnomer, at least in the sense that I use strops this way. To me, it's 'nap'; very soft, almost velvety to the touch. That's what I get when sanding the smooth side of the veg-tan leather I've used. Much like fine hairs over the otherwise firm base of the leather. Holds compound better than a plain, smooth-finished leather. And over time, the 'hairs' of the nap tend to lay down again, and the strop becomes smoother in feel (more so if using wax-based compound on it). I've used it with Simichrome and green compound mostly; there's not that much increase in friction, per se. With the Simichrome, in fact, it's quite 'slick' in feel (after the suspension dries, leaving the AlOx 'dust' behind).

I have attempted to use some truly 'rough' leather (the backside of some veg-tanned), and it's hard/bumpy/irregular and has no appeal to me, for stropping.

Having said all that, I've still gravitated away from leather in general, favoring other firmer/harder surfaces for stropping, for the most part. Main exception is my leather belt, which I still use with some green compound (and a bare section) on the inside face of the belt, and occasionally a pass or two on the outside face. I use it like a hanging strop, and it works well with 'basic steel' blades like 1095, Case CV, Opinel's 'carbone' XC90 and Case/Buck 420HC.


David
 
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I use a few different compounds on a few different strops, but all on the same leather. I use the nap side which in my case has a quality as described by David, very soft fibers, they are also very short. What I'm finding is that this nap is enough to grab and hold the compound, but is smooth and consistent enough to not cause problems with rounding.

As for the strop/compound combo not sharpening I disagree. I've been using my strops solely to maintain the edges on my wood carving knives and gouge (aside from one instance where I had to touch up an O1 blade on an Ark stone) and they remain as sharp as the day that I bought them. Wood may not be the most aggressive medium in which to cut, but at this point I know what blunting edges feel like, and what a freshly stropped edge looks, sounds and feels like when carving. Especially when I have to go with the grain.

Very experienced carvers who have done it for many years have written that an edge, if stropped right, and assuming a proper steel, ht and geometry, will maintain indefinitely.
 
I suppose it depends on what "suede" you use, but Kanayama #3 comes with 2 strips: leather and suede. The suede on Kanayama is recommended by nearly all straight razor guys that use them, and I've used it to strop knives as well. Fantastic strop for just about anything.

Personally I have bought horse leathers, English bridle, Latigo, kangaroo, etc. and sanded a few of them. If you have chemically treated leather like cordovan or kanayama, I would not sand them. A lot of money and research has gone into making that leather that way and sanding would deteriorate the finish. Otherwise, I think it would be educational to sand some portion of the leather to see if you like the feel. If you run through progression to a fine enough grit and wax it over with smidge of finishing wax, you could bring back something comparable to original finish.

As to cleaning, I don't use alcohol. I felt that it dries out the leather and changes the texture over time. Now I just use water, or once in a while water with small bit of soap. Rub it with palm of the hand afterward to transfer some oil.
 
xuz, I agree re: alcohol. I've cleaned strops with alcohol and with kerosene (well technically denatured alcohol, lamp "oil") and I can say that I don't like the end result. The next time (which will most likely be later today) that I clean one of my strops I'm going to try wd40. Hopefully it won't alter the leather in a drastic fashion like alcohol and kerosene have.
 
The old shoemaker who taught me to freehand sharpen when I was a kid used to strop his knives on a paddle strop that was so smooth and glazed over that you could almost see your reflection in it. His work knives would pull through sole leather like my EDC pulls through a shirt cardboard. He taught me to sharpen on my cub scout knife and what was probably a SiC stone, then strop on his paddle strop until my knife could cut sole leather too... But it never cut as easily as his knives. 'course... they were much thinner than my scout knife, but his technique has served me for the past 60 years. Smooth, slick strops. Even with compound on them... smooth and slick and just enough to color the leather rather than cover the leather.

Stitchawl
 
Strigamort said:
xuz, I agree re: alcohol. I've cleaned strops with alcohol and with kerosene (well technically denatured alcohol, lamp "oil") and I can say that I don't like the end result. The next time (which will most likely be later today) that I clean one of my strops I'm going to try wd40. Hopefully it won't alter the leather in a drastic fashion like alcohol and kerosene have.
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If you do try the WD-40, just moisten a paper towel or rag with it, and wipe the leather. Avoid spraying it directly on the leather (I'm betting you already know this). Wiping the leather should leave it just moist enough to darken it slightly, but it should dry back to normal-looking within an hour or two, if not quicker. The little bit of mineral oil in the WD-40 will remain in the leather for a bit, and that is what helps prevent it from becoming excessively dry. Strops that I've cleaned with it show no signs of it (by sight, feel or smell) within a day or two, and I've not noticed any change in character of the leather. Pretty easy to get along with, used this way.


David
 
If the leather is very hard, sanding can definitely make an improvement. Depending on the compound and how its applied, doing this can make a big difference in how thin and uniform it can be worked into the leather. In my experience using the sueded side of the leather is only good for larger grit compounds and the smooth side is better for finer abrasives. Again, this is going to be effected by a number of factors - compound with a hard vehicle will make most of the nap embed flat in very short order, but allow the option of "refreshing" the compound simply by rubbing it with a fingertip or another piece of leather.

Have also experimented with boiled leather and the surface was so unyielding and smooth that the thinnest of compound films could be wiped off almost without a trace (even microscopically) with a fingertip. In this case roughing it up with a 32 TPI hacksaw blade worked very well.

There are too many variables involved in stropping - between compound vehicle, density and composition of backing, blanket statements are tough to make, even when it comes to cleaning.

To the OP, you might try the alcohol and scrape it in the direction of the nap using the back of a saw blade or spine of an old knife, edge of a putty knife etc instead of Scotchbrite. You just want to get the old compound out of there. A bit of soapy water will can be used in this manner too, and allows you to rinse it off afterward. Oils work as well, by breaking down the binder in the compound, but over time can build up in the leather and change the character of the strop - maybe for better maybe for worse. Washing it with soap and water and having it dry repeatedly will change it too, but will make the leather harder rather than softer - again changing the character of the strop for better or worse. All depends on how often it needs cleaning.

Compound loaded with swarf does not function like a fresh hit of compound - this is probably what's effecting your results more than the nap lying flat, and why for loaded stropping I just use a sheet of paper. Recycle it when it loads up and the action is always the same.
 
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