you absolutely can strop with bare leather…I do regularly. you won’t get the same sort of “gleam” on your edge as you will with a paste or spray, but it depends on what you like and how sharp you want to go. Personally, I don’t care all that much about a highly polished edge except on a couple of specific knives.
The majority of my knives get diamond stones to 1000 grit, then stropped with bare kangaroo for a couple of hundred strokes. After I’ve done that, I do a single pass on the edge with the 1000 grit stone to restore a tiny amount of the tooth ond call it good.
The bare leather gives it a “sheen” as opposed to a “shine” or “polish”. It cuts like crazy , it’s easy to touch up and is quite durable on most of my knives.
The difference ( in my mind…others with more experience will chime in) with adding a paste or spray is really fine tuning the edge. A polished edge is certainly sharper, but I find it gets to a point where it’s almost TOO sharp…there is no grab left. I like a bit of tooth as well, so that I can get a cut started, especially on smooth, hard surfaces like zip-ties. I find those very tough to cut with a polished edge, but much easier to cut with an arguably duller edge with some tooth to grip the surface and start the cut.
Are you confused now? I am…
.
