Thread: Stropping With Tape?

Euclid, you said you strop on suede leather, is this instead of regular leather? Or is it the pre step to leather that most use the linen for? Do you have a micro grit on your suede and if you do, how often do you use it?

Drmatt

Stropping on untreated suede leather in place of linen to clean the bevel. Then stropping on leather for final strop. Using CBN .125 as the final paste left a near perfect stria less bevel and smooth, sharp comfortable shave. Stropping on linen the following day left new stria on the bevel. I believe the linen contains abrasives larger than the .125 CBN.

Suede leaves no new stria and a clean bevel preped for stropping on a Kanayama Cordovan Strop. I have CBN on a pasted 2mm craft foam, a 1.0, .50 and .125um strops. Lately just as an experiment been stropping about 10 laps on just the .125 with a H2O mist every 3-4 days to see what it does to the edge. I think you can go longer a week or 2 and retain the same edge quality with just leather, suede and Cordovan.

Not familiar with craft foam. Where did you get the idea for the misting with water?

Craft foam is high-density foam, comes in 9 X 12 in X 2mm thick or thicker. Available at Crafts stores and Wal-Mart for about a dollar per sheet will make 3 strops. Glue to a hard surface, I use 1/8 in hardboard or MDF. 2mm foam works best, thicker foams have too much give and will round the edge. The thicker foams are great for hand work on a blade though. The edge imbeds into the foam and it is impossible to cut yourself. Great for hand polishing and sanding and wipe clean with spray cleaner like simple green or 409.

Foam makes an excellent strop for paste as it has no abrasives like Balsa, leather, linen or even paper. Small pores hold paste exceptionally well.

Works for any paste better than anything I have found except possibly Nylon/ Poly strapping, especially for sub-micron grit sprays, diamond & CBN where almost anything is larger than the paste grit even the minerals in tap water.

Many of the CBN guys spray it on paper or cloth and use water as a lubricant. The distilled H2O mist also works well with Diamond sprays. Use a fine mist sprayer, a 3oz plastic spray bottle with distilled water from a craft store. Google You Tube, CBN stropping.