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Welcome to the W.E. forum Sharpnew.

Here’s another option for stone storage when portability and an enclosed box aren’t necessary:

https://knife.wickededgeusa.com/forums/topic/we-stone-racks-for-sale/page/13/

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Sharpnew, Mike, airscapes

The recommendation to reduce the angle setting by 2º is based on the compressibility of the cow leather.  The intent is to help new strop users to not round over their sharpened edges while getting the hang of the stropping technique.  The softer, thicker, more compressible cow leather can wrap down around the apex with the edge trailing stropping strokes, sometimes diminishing the sharpness.  Thus the term rounded over edges.

After strop users develop their stropping technique they can adjust the angle back-off accordingly.  I no longer need to back my angle settings off for cow leather strops.  I strop at the same setting as I finished my sharpening regimen with.

You could also simply use the stiffer, less compressible kangaroo leather strops for your 4µ/2µ strop pair instead of the cow leather strops.  The more expensive kangaroo leather is generally reserved for the finer grit size abrasives because the kangaroo leather itself is smoother, cleaner, more uniform leather and it’s less apt to impart any extraneous, unwanted visible surface blemishes while working with such fine size abrasive particle grits.  That doesn’t preclude you from using the higher grits with the Kangaroo so you don’t need to be concerned with the angle setting recommendations.  The Nanocloth srops are smoother still than the kangaroo.   Any grit stropping particles can be used with any of the strop mediums.  This is user’s choice.

I recognize the benefits of stropping in the feel of the cutting edge as I use the knife.  I do not see much of an improvement in my Bess scores between a finished sharpened edge test and the same edge stropped then tested, again.  I believe this may be because the Bess test is a straight down vertical push cut test.  The difference in how a stropped edge feels cutting is felt in the slicing motion.  Where the bite or the grab of the unstropped edge is more apparent.  A lightly stropped edge, for me, removes the grab or snag I feel and not helpful toothiness I want.

Sharpnew wrote:

So what is a source to buy replacement roo strops in lieu of cow?  I know the cow is $3 but see no replacements for the roo other than buying complete handles. or, I could just get 2 nano handles for 4/2 and 1/.5 and forget about roo? or, just lapping film handles 6, 3, 1.5, and 1 micron, whats the point of 4/2 and 1/.5 cow when I can also do .5, .25, .1, on roo, .1 lapping, and .025 on roo? Seems like cow isnt necessary?

I did a little internet searching some time back and saw there are some sources for tanned Kangaroo hide.  I never got further than that.

The nano is an interesting alternative because it can be rinsed out when dirty.

What you want to use for polishing your sharpened edges depends on what you’re trying to do.  What you choose to use and in what order is results driven by seeing what you like after doing it.  The grits don’t necessarily follow in linear fashion when you transition from one medium to the next. The different mediums don’t necessarily work the same way. A step back up to a coarser grit or two is common practice to yield better blended and visually cleaner results.

My sharpening is more about function and utility.  With diamonds I usually go through 1500 grit.  For whetstones, depending on the type of stone and the steel hardness, I go through anywhere from 4K to 8K. Then, I’m just finishing with the 4µ/2µ strop pair on cow leather to remove the wire edge, the edge bite and drag left from sharpening. This results in just a little better slide through.  It gives me the sharp working edges I like for my knives.  There’s still plenty of polish doing it this way.

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Sharpnew