Leather strop: which side up?
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Tagged: leather strop
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Hi,
I just glued only piece of leather I have to a board to make a leather strop. Then I wondered if I put right side of the leather up. The piece of leather has a smooth side and a rough side. I glued it smooth side up. Did I do it right?
I have a bad habit of doing it first and asking questions later.
4 March 2015 at 4:34 am #125228Typically its rough side up for a strop. But I doubt that you will notice much difference. Just charge it with compound and put it to work.
4 March 2015 at 10:30 am #125232Woah! I may be new to woodwork but I’ve been stropping blades all my adult life as a leatherworker/chef. Leather has two sides, the grain (smooth) side and the flesh (rough) side. Stropping is the final treatment to a sharpened edge and the strop surface should be as smooth and flat as possible, primed with a fine abrasive. I and all the “seriously sharp” people I know strop on the grain side of leather. Michi got it right.
4 March 2015 at 12:03 pm #125233i use mine rough side up as this is what was recommended by Paul as he uses an upholstery grade leather left over from seats that he makes,
4 March 2015 at 1:23 pm #125235Well there you go Eddie, I have no doubt that Paul bases his stropping decisions on years of practice & experience…..but so do I. Most craftsmen who strop really sharp fine blades like razors and scalpels use the grain side, in my experience. I’ll say one thing though, I’ve noticed in at least one video Paul stropping a blade and the leather parting from and turning up from the wood block it was fixed to. If he glued the leather to the block flesh side down that would never happen.
4 March 2015 at 1:33 pm #125238i’ve also seen Paul used the compound directly onto a piece of wood has anyone used this method
4 March 2015 at 1:59 pm #125239“Which side of the leather?
I usually use the rougher textured side for general strop work, but for ultra fine stropping of say 25,000 I use the smooth side. If the finish is too hard or smooth, I use abrasive paper to give a little ’tooth’ to the surface. I generally use buffing compound available from Lee Valley Veritas and here is the link. My strops are always 3” wide, 3/4” thick and 10” long. I used to use rubber cement or plastic laminate cement and this works well, but I found that double-sided mounting tape works just as well and double-sided carpet tape all the better.”
Per Paul’s blog post: https://paulsellers.com/2013/02/on-strops-and-more/
Personally I have made strops with both configurations. I find that, for woodworking tools, the flesh (rough) side up is much quicker when going directly from the stones. The resulting edge is more than fine enough for any work that I am doing.
Every industry or craft that utilizes a cutting edge will have its preferred methods as well as different requirements as to the fineness of the edge. I answered the question based on woodworking. If I decide to become a barber or chef, I’ll reexamine my stropping setup.
The main reason that the rough, or suede side is preferred by many users is that by virtue of it’s irregular surface, it retains the charge of buffing paste better. Even if it’s stiff, the leather is soft enough to conform to the shape of the blade being dragged across it.
Another carvers’ trick is to follow up using a very flat piece of thick – 18mm at least – good quality plywod charged with jeweler’s rouge down one half and finishing with Autosol down the other. This is an excellent way to polish out the ‘wire’ and fine-hone the edge at the same time.
The reason Paul uses the rough side, as mentioned by Greg above, is because he doesn’t use a strop in the conventional sense and so requires lots of compound and the dampening effect.
Going from his last diamond stone, he expects a lot from a strop (1200->8000). This is the reason for all that force. This inevitably ends up in an edge which is rounded. Using it in this sense also means you push the most of the grit within the leather and leave the largest grits exposed, leaving you with a finish that is usually fouled with scratches.
A strops usual purpose is to realign a sharp edge, similar to steeling, not for actual sharpening. The presentation angle is usually constant in woodworking, unlike an edge used in food preparation, and so realigning merits very little.
4 March 2015 at 6:37 pm #125259From what I understand it doesn’t matter if you are using a compound because the leather is just holding the compound, not polishing the steel. That is why it also works great on wood – which is one thing MDF is actually good for 🙂
Anyway if you are not using a compound you would want smooth side up for best results; otherwise it doesn’t make much of a difference.
4 March 2015 at 9:49 pm #125260Yes you can use a clean straight grain wood I have used a 4x9x3/4 piece of beech for a few years, I started using a leather strop rough side up, as Paul teaches after buying the Diomond plates. Before this I used oil stones 300, 800, 1200 and a white Arkansas. Then a flat beech wood strop with white compound. This worked well but took a long time, I had tried water stones, they where a mess and the flatting thing was more mess and work. It took longer, the object is to get tools sharp not sharpen.
I like Paul’s system it’s faster, cleaner and for me with my messed up hands the most repeatable, I often use a simple jig because my hands can’t close enough to hold a lot of tools.
My system has evolved with time, first I go though the three Diomond stones then the strop with green compound, if it’s a very fine edge I then go to the beech strop with white compound. I have a fixed sharpening station it’s a small table with two Drews. My grinder is on one side, my 12×20 glass plate on the shelf above, my plates in a holder on a second shelf all other supplies are on top or in the drews this way what ever is needed is ready, do the sharpening get it done and back to work, one other thing that made a big difference in the shop, If you ùse a tool, sharpen it wipe it down (clean it) and put it away. That way all cutting tools are always sharp, clean and ready to work, I hatted it that when I was in the middle of doing something, I would have to stop hunt a tool then have to sharpen, fix, clean a tool be for I could continue.
Thank you Tom Fidgen for teaching this
FrankjThank you all for a lot of good information. After 24 hours of setting time, my piece of leather isn’t going to move. So, it’s grain side up for me.
I did buy a Veritas honing compound.
I just gave the whole thing a try. My gouge has a nice mirror shine now. It’s looking pretty good. Now, if only I can actually get it sharp… I’ll keep trying.
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