Strop questions.

[Geno]

I have recently wanted to start stropping my knives and I have found where I am going to purchase mine from. I am almost certainly going to be getting my strop from stropman.com and I have looked at his HD Compact strop: http://www.stropman.com/HD-Compact-Leat ... ompact.htm which is two sided with both sides having the leater flesh(fuzzy) side up to take compound. Now I have found he has a 4 sided strop called the Billy: http://www.stropman.com/BILLY-Leather-Strop-BILLY.htm and it has three sides witht he flesh(fuzzy) side up, and one side with the hide(smooth) side up and it says its for "cleaning the blade and a few final stropping strokes". Can anybody explain to me what the point of having a hide side up is for and tell me if I progress all the way to a green compound if the hide side of the last side will actually dull it more or if it will help and clean it or anything? I have never had a strop before and I just haven't seen anyone say anything more about a hide/smooth side up and what it is for or if It is supposed to have compound on it or anything. Sorry if these are all stupid questions but I would rather know before I make a purchase.

Here are a couple pictures showing the Billy strop and its smooth side.

[tvenuto]

Did you think of asking the purveyor himself? Just a thought. I personally don't use strops at the moment, so I can't be of much help. I know some here do, and might chime in.

[Cliff Stamp]

If you use loose grit compounds, then a rough surface can be easier to brush it somewhat clean. A rough surface, just like on a rag, can also be used to clean the edge. There are three basic rules to follow (the trilogy if you will) when you become a member of the strop club :

Rule 1 : always use very light force and a lot of passes
Rule 2 : always use very light force and a lot of passes
Rule 3 : strop at a slightly lower angle than the sharpening angle
Rule 4 : don't use a strop to compensate for poor sharpening on a stone

Clay (from WE) was the first guy to actually quantify the last part as he knew that strops compressed (all leather/sandpaper does), and so he adjusted the angle down on the WE until the strop angle would match the sharpening angle. It takes about 2 degrees with the leather he uses.

[Geno]

To me it seems like then the smooth side would be sub par for cleaning it, wouldnt it be better to have another flesh side because it is more rough?

[TazKristi]

Moving to Off Topic.

[Geno]

bump. anybody else know anything about this?

[Skidoosh]

I made my strop with the flesh side up, it holds more compound that way. I also use a strop without backing with the smooth side up for polish with a 1mm slurry. Don't worry about it, start to use it. Use some baby oil to help the compound get seated into the leather.

Lately I use the strop on super-blue and cts-xhp without going back to the stones. Strops are helpful so jump in and enjoy.

[Evil D]

I've moved away from stropping, but I still use them on the back side of some serrated knives. I get great results from a plain old piece of leather belt loaded with red polishing compound. A couple years ago when I first got into stropping, I went out and blew $50 on an assortment of diamond pastes, and to this day haven't had as good of results as I have with that red compound, not with any of the pastes I have and I have them from 40 micron all the way down to .5 micron.

[Johnnie1801]

I get great results from a plain old piece of leather belt loaded with red polishing compound.

I use steel polish on my home made strop, works pretty good for me. I also read somewhere turtle wax can be used but I haven't tried it. I'm all about saving money on this stuff - more cash for knives :p

[Evil D]

I get great results from a plain old piece of leather belt loaded with red polishing compound.

I use steel polish on my home made strop, works pretty good for me. I also read somewhere turtle wax can be used but I haven't tried it. I'm all about saving money on this stuff - more cash for knives :p

The hardest part is finding a real leather belt it seems. Most belts these days aren't real leather, or are of the worst cheapest bonded variety you can find. While I'm sure those higher quality leathers have their merits, for what I use them for they're likely overkill and a waste of cash. I already had a big bar of polishing compound, and for whatever reason the red seems to work best for me out of red/white/green/black compounds (don't recall what grit each is off the top of my head).