Damaged strop or no big deal?

[Rocco Sanello]

Ok guys, my latest blunder. Took a few bites outta my leather strops accidentally running them across the wicked edge I just proudly made. They’re not terrible, but they’re not completely insignificant either. Will this noticeably reduce the effectiveness of the strop? Thanks guys.

– Rocco

[wickededge]

Hey Rocco,

Of course a picture or two would be very helpful, but at a guess of the damage, I would say that you needn’t worry. My strops always get nicked up eventually and still perform well.

-Clay

[Tom Whittington]

My strops look like they saw battlefield use, but they work fine 🙂 I’ve noticed that even if you take some chunks out, when you recharge the paste it will smooth over those spots surprisingly well and staying with consistent motion will still give a nice polish despite the potholes or nicks.

[Mark76]

Try to cut off the pieces of leather that stick out with a sharp knife (you do have sharp knives, I assume 😉 ). Then you should be able to use the strops as before.

A few other tips:
– I found learning stropping with a balsa strop a bit easier. Balsa doesn’t get nicked so easily.
– Try to initially restrain yourself to clear up-movements only and don’t go too fast. That way you cannot nick your strops.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[cbwx34]

Another tip is to strop in sections, especially the tip area, “resetting” the strop at the base of the rod, to insure you’re using an edge trailing stroke.

[Rocco Sanello]

Awesome guys thanks again. Yea they’re not that bad so I think I’ll be okay. Thanks for the tips as well.

[Nicholas Angeja]

I found these way too damaged to effectively strop, what are peoples take on them?

or this link

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-_onCKVPjqkI/UQnqudfzZpI/AAAAAAAAAJ0/26KIe8oVdBE/s505/IMG_20130130_110112.jpg

[cbwx34]

Right one looks ok… left one looks pretty bad though. Just looking at the photo… I’d probably replace it. You could try sanding it smooth first and see if that works… nothing to lose at this point I think. My .02.

[Geocyclist]

If you do sand it down and try it please post your results. I have not sanded one yet, but am interested how it turns out.

[Nicholas Angeja]

Thanks cbwx34, the one on the left was the problem one for me. Learned the hard way stropping with my left hand :ohmy:

Right one looks ok… left one looks pretty bad though. Just looking at the photo… I’d probably replace it. You could try sanding it smooth first and see if that works… nothing to lose at this point I think. My .02.

If you do sand it down and try it please post your results. I have not sanded one yet, but am interested how it turns out

I ended up purchasing new leather and replace the damaged leather strops, so i wont be able to test the sandpaper technique on them but I do also have slightly damaged plain leather strops that i’m contemplating changing the leather on too, depending on how these new leather strops work out….. If all goes well, i’ll test the sandpaper technique on those strops for you….. just not sure what grit of sand paper I should use, any ideas?

[Phil Pasteur]

When we discussed this before, I mentioned that I had repaired some strops using sandpaper. I also have made a bunch of bench strops out of horse butt. Now hard rolled horse butt is great for stropping because it is very dense and hard. It does not curl so much and convexes the edge a bit less than cow. The problem is that it is not very flat and has some large pores. I decided to sand those strops. After doing about a dozen of them I had a process down. It is the sam one I use for repairing my WEPS strops. I start with around 200 grit, depending on what I have handy. This is mounted on a hand sanding block.What I used last was some 200 open grit wood sanding paper. Sand until the defect that you want to remove are mostly gone. I then moved to 400 grit then 600 grit wet or dry paper. The 600 I taped to a piece of flat steel and rubbed the stop on it.
I guess you could go on to 1000 grit or higher for a finer texture, but I haven’t found it to be required. The result is a smooth flat strop with a nice nap with a texture sort of like buckskin that holds pastes or sprays quite well. Once repaired the strops seem to work just as well as new ones. The fine nap that is left gives then a real nice feel at first, but soon lays down in use.

Phil

[Mark76]

Phil,

Good to hear that sanding to 600 grit is sufficient.

Michiel did a blog post about hard rolled leather (from HA) some time ago: http://belgiansharpening.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/hard-rolled-horse-butt/ . Might be interesting.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Phil Pasteur]

Yes,
I read that a ways back, and a bunch of other folks raving about the hard rolled 8 lb horse butt. That is why I bought 4 whole hard rolled horse butt pieces. I cut it into 12X3″ pieces myself. I noticed at one time that HA had some “select” pieces. I never got any of them because they seemed a bit expensive.
There is enough leather for a bunch of strops out of each horse butt. Only maybe two or three can be made of unblemished material (probably the quality that HA was selling). Other pieces will have fatty areas, wrinkles, scars etc. I read another article somewhere about a guy that sanded his. I ended up sanding all of my strops made from that material… so it was an easy leap to get to thinking that I could do the same with my WEPS strops when I scarred them up a bit. It worked…
🙂

[airscapes]

I know this is an ancient thread but have a related question.. I am just a grasshopper and as such having a real hard time with Stropping which seems to be a completely different art from than sharpening.. If nothing else, making your muscle memory reverse direction after 3 hour is a real challenge.   So far since have had the stops I have rolled over every blade I have tried to strop.  I also took a big chunk out of the 4/2 strop the very first use.  Is it possible this chuck missing is contributing to my failures (looking else where to place blame 😉 ) My thinking is; as the chunk moves up over the blade even with the WE set 2 degrees in, the edge drops into the grove and as the trailing wall of the grove come up over the edge we get direct contact..  Is this wishful thinking?  I will be ordering a couple new pieces of leather shortly..

Another question, is the balsa wood strop something special?  I have a huge box of balsa wood in the garage, any reason this wold not work in place of leather if I cut, sanded and glued it on in place of leather?  Do you use emulsion with the wood or is it used dry?

Thanks!

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by airscapes.

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[Marc H]

There’s still plenty of usable area on that strop, (like 2/3 of it).  That being said the only way to have peace of mind that the strop is not the cause of your problems is to replace it.

The balsa is the stiffest, least compressible stropping medium.  It’s usually recommended for edge maintenance with the the higher grit strop pastes.  The finer grits on leather are for edge refinement and polish.  There is no reason you can’t use the balsa wood you have if you are looking to make a balsa strop.  (As long as it is thick enough to be above the the paddle sides.)  Also the stropping angle is reduced less, or not at all, when stropping with the stiff balsa.  That you’ll have to determine with use, what works best for you, and coordinates well with your technique.

Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)

[Author]

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