Thread: Buying stropping material without buying the entire strop.

Yeah even leather is abrasive. All things have some abrasive quality when rubbed together even the water you run over your razor. I would guess the abrasive qualities of a cloth component are relatively minimal but they do smooth things out according to some folks. Honestly, I rarely to never use compounds due to my HAD. Why buy an Escher or a Jnat just to nullify their distinct feel with compounds IMHO. Also, I find the edges a little harsh from CROX. I just bought a Jnat and HOLY GOD it feels good. I can't wait to get good with my Jnat and hit honing nirvana!

Originally Posted by Dzanda

I can't comment regarding felt, but the flax linen strop that I love is much rougher than your typical cotton linen, and I'd say that it's fairly abrasive (for a fabric). But remember that almost ANYTHING delivers some degree of abrasion; some folks even talk of using newsprint as a strop.

Newsprint is a very common stropping material for knife sharpeners. Murray Carter (cartercutlery.com) who is a well known knifemaker and 17th degree Japanese bladesmith (or similar title) just lays a piece of newspaper over his stone. I bet you can cut 50 sheets of newsprint 3"x18" and clamp them together at each end to use as a strop. If you think the top layer is worn or too smooth, just rip it off and use the next one down. I'd almost bet money that would work. I'd almost bet a lot of someone else's money.

I only have clean felt & I don't think is very abrasive alone
I use it mainly to pre clean my blades before the leather

I have the SRD modular paddle strop . Lynn recommends the felt pads and diamond spray in his youtube video. I use the .5 micron diamond spray on the felt pad for touch-ups and initial bevel setting after honing on the 16K shapton glass.

I only use true Flax linen before leather on all of my blades. It is stiffer and will clean an edge in short order. Flax is much stronger with longer fibers and a lot stiffer than other components.

It is what used to be on vintage strops years ago. It just plain works better.

The purpose is to clean the whiskers and burr off of the razor and heat it up a bit, then the leather will reheat the edge and complete the edge finish. I strop more strokes AFTER the shave to bring the edge back, the a few strokes before the shave is all that is needed to get the edge shave ready.

This process will keep the razor edge sharp for months between hones and save some steel.

I also never use compounds on ANY of my strops.

Dave