How to use strops, I keeps slicing them

[Kevin Coughlin]

Hi I was just wondering how you guys use your strops, I noticed yesterday after doing a chefs knife that my strops had about 4 slices in them, I was pissed when I noticed it and hope I didn’t ruin them, was just wondering if you had any tips on how to prevent it???? And I’m gonna have to be a little more careful when sharpening long blades… Lost the tip of my pinky finger yesterday and had to take a trip to the ER, once I got home I finished the knife and the results were awesome, i love this system! Thanks everyone, Semper Fi

[Gary Crumb]

Hi I was just wondering how you guys use your strops, I noticed yesterday after doing a chefs knife that my strops had about 4 slices in them, I was pissed when I noticed it and hope I didn’t ruin them, was just wondering if you had any tips on how to prevent it???? And I’m gonna have to be a little more careful when sharpening long blades… Lost the tip of my pinky finger yesterday and had to take a trip to the ER, once I got home I finished the knife and the results were awesome, i love this system! Thanks everyone, Semper Fi

Well, first thing is, keep those little piggies behind the stones! Sorry, I’m a smarta$$ by nature, please don’t take offense! But, as you know firsthand, it’s real easy to cut yourself if you are not careful, especially with the edges you’ll be getting with this system. That said, let’s move on to the strop issue. it’s just a matter of technique. Never move the strop down when it’s touching the blade, obvious I know but it’s really easy to nick it if you’re not lifting before the end of your stroke. Use lighter pressure, one of the main things to do, and try to keep your strokes just a bit more vertical. Any time the strop is moving along the blade with no upward sweep, you risk another nick.
I hope this helps!

[Phil Pasteur]

Kevin,

I have sliced the heck out of my strops in the past. I don’t seem to do that as much these days. Not sure why, but I can tell you what I think the difference is.

I use very light strokes and concentrate on always moving the strop away from the edge, not sliding it along the edge. This takes some practice with longer blades because you run out of travel at the tip.
If doing a longer blade, I pause and re-cock, at some point, so I have enough travel to keep pushing the strop away from the edge, even at the tip. It is very easy to start sliding the strop along the edge when covering the curve at the tip… don’t, you will slice the leather.

Try decreasing your angle a bit when stropping. Various threads here have talked about 1 to 3 degrees. I typically decrease the angle by about a degree.. or maybe 0.5 to 0.75 if using the angle cube.

If you decrease the angle, say from 20 to 19 degrees, and use light strokes, you will also decrease the likelyhood of slicing those strops.

Don’t despair though, the strops can survive a good bit of wear and tear and still work well. At some point you may decide to recondition them. I have a glass plate, I put 220 grit sandpaper on the plate and rub the leather on it until most, if not all, of the iregularities are gone. I then switch to 600 grit and resurface them. At that point, put your choice of abrasives on them and have at it. The results are just as good as if they were new.

BTW, I have sliced myself pretty good using the WEPS. This is also something that you learn.. careful and deliberate with the stones and strops… and never reach across that sharp blade for anything..
🙂

Phil

[Cory]

What I ended up doing on the longer blades was shortening my strokes. You can walk your strops from one end to the other in 2 or 3 strokes and not nick them at all and still get good coverage. The other thing that I have tried to do is slow down a little. I know I know you get in that rhythm and it just feels right to go for it. The problem is that rhythm was created with your stones because you use them more than everything else and it doesn’t matter if you drag a stone like it does a strop. My first set of strops lasted about a year and then they were falling to pieces. I feel your pain but I promise the second set lasts a lot better. I have yet to nick set two and I’m a good 25 knives into them. Oh and Chesty is a wuss!

[Geocyclist]

I would agree with what everyone has said. I can only add this, not only pay attention to not going down, but also making good flat contact, and being careful with the tip. ( I start my strop stroke tip to heel). I have sliced a few times, but more often have little bit cuts from the tip. My philosophy is that by paying more attention to the stops it will make my other stones works better too. With the stones you can’t slice them, but a bad stroke can’t be good for your edge.

That’s dedication that you finished the knife after getting back from the ER. :woohoo:

[Robert Nash]

Hey Kevin – welcome to the forum – hope your pinkie is healing up nicely :blink:
Great advice here on keeping from whittling away your leather – and your fingers 😛 Only thing I would add, is that unless you actually take off a big chunk of the surface or they are about to fall to pieces like Cory’s were, you can just keep on using them. I occasionally have to reverse the handles on the rod as the surface can get a little bumpy. That smooths things back out again.

Gotta move out the rod faster than you move along the blade – that is what I always think about when stropping and….

keep those little piggies behind the stones!

[Graham Wyatt]

Awesome ( about the finishing on yr return from ER). I too made some slicing nicks on my first long blade last night. Does any one know how to repair the leather strops.

[Phil Pasteur]

Kevin,

Don’t despair though, the strops can survive a good bit of wear and tear and still work well. At some point you may decide to recondition them. I have a glass plate, I put 220 grit sandpaper on the plate and rub the leather on it until most, if not all, of the iregularities are gone. I then switch to 600 grit and resurface them. At that point, put your choice of abrasives on them and have at it. The results are just as good as if they were new.

Phil

Of course, you can also just replace the leather if they get bad enough that the above wil not work.

[Xbander]

,
Don’t despair though, the strops can survive a good bit of wear and tear and still work well. At some point you may decide to recondition them. I have a glass plate, I put 220 grit sandpaper on the plate and rub the leather on it until most, if not all, of the iregularities are gone. I then switch to 600 grit and resurface them. At that point, put your choice of abrasives on them and have at it. The results are just as good as if they were new.

BTW, I have sliced myself pretty good using the WEPS. This is also something that you learn.. careful and deliberate with the stones and strops… and never reach across that sharp blade for anything..

Phil’s note above has good advice on how to repair the leather strops. I have used what he describes with sandpaper and got very good results. Kevin with each knife you will get better, and welcome to the forum.

[Geocyclist]

James, Phil,

The stops I made by hand (leather glued on wood) I put the rough side up.

My WE’s strops are smooth side up. Does sanding take the smooth edge off down to rough grain leather? Or are not not even sanding that much off?

I have never sanded leather.

[Phil Pasteur]

There is lots of discussion out there about whether to use the split side or smooth side of leather for stropping. I have bench strops made both ways. I think Clay’s photos have shown some differences in the results using each at 500X . There does seem to be a bit of difference at the microscopic level… not a huge one though. There is a thread listed in the WIKI where he shows photos of the differences with smooth side, split side cow leather and some horse but strops mixed in there. If you look at them, remember the magnification level when evaluting the difference.

With my horse butt strops, I took the “smooth” side down with sandpaper before even trying to use it. It was full of irregularities, fat deposits, scars and pores.
For those I started with 220 grit, then 400, then 600, then 1000 grit. It left a very fine nap, almost like buckskin and left the surface ultra flat. They work well though, better I am sure than had I not sanded them!! I probably spent a couple of hours on each 12 X 3″ bench hone to make them to my liking… I do like the results I get using them with the full range of abrasives that I have!

So, to answer your question, I guess the level of damage you have to your strops will detemine how much material you need to remove to get the leather smooth. I guess no matter how much (or how little) you have to sand, you will end up with a different texture on the leather than you started with on the smooth side. I am not convinced that the difference in your edges will be even noticeable (except if you use very high magnification to view the edge). In fact, I find that the sanded leather holds my diamond sprays better then when they were not dressed by sanding.

Having said all of this, I have not bothered to mess with the strops until they were pretty beat up, or if I want to use them with a finer grit. When I say pretty beat up, I mean multiple slices and nicks… chattering accross the blade, black with blade steel powder, beat up.

[Xbander]

As I first started with the strops, I did not understand how different they are from the stones.
Some of my movements produced some slices in the leather.
The term bumpy fits, it was not a smooth stroke they had become bumpy.
How to get them back smooth, how to remove the edges of the cuts and not destroy the strop?
Sandpaper on a hard surface came to mind.
I had 400 and 600 grit sandpaper used when I made hummingbird bands to polish the band edge so it
does not hurt the bird’s leg.
Taped the sandpaper to a bamboo cutting board and worked the strop back and forth.
It leveled the strop back out and it removed the edges around the cuts in the leather.
The strops were smooth as before.

So in my case I did not sand that much off. I cleaned them with alcohol, let them dry and reapplied the diamond paste, good as new.

[Geocyclist]

Thanks guys. I will try sanding sometime.

I was surprised that the paste took to the WE strops as smooth as they were. I thought the paste would just smear off. I did load mine very lightly and the paste did smear easily by finger. But in the end it looks like they do retain the paste

[Kevin Coughlin]

Thanks for the advice everyone, I’m trying to be more cautious when stropping now so I don’t slice it, but if it gets any worse I’ll try to smooth it down like you guys mentioned

[Kevin Coughlin]

And no bad mouthing Chesty coreyschnaufer!

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