In the kitchen . . . aka. I think my strop is cooked

I took my kamisori to my coti yesterday evening and everything seemed to be going nicely. Good undercut, suction on the stone, and I was liking the TPT results. Stropped on leather 50x and the TPT'd again and guess what? Absosmurfly no edge at all except right at the toe. Grrrrrrrr. Back to the stone once again, brought the edge up once more and stropped on my paddle strop this time 50x and the edge seems pretty nice.

This made me look at my old strop and I think it might be close to being called toast. It seemed to have a bunch of funny textured areas which it didn't seem to have before. That doesn't seem right. A little palm-heel rubbing with some pressure definitely showed that there are many rougher patches on the strop. I took some 1500 grit sandpaper lightly to it (wrapped around a plastic pipe for evenness). Didn't like what I was seeing, so used some 400 grit to expedite things and this is what I get.....


The darker areas are the "raised" rougher spots and they're all over the place. Luckily the leather is thick enough that I can just flip it to the other side to use if I want to, and thankfully, I have my paddle strop as well. Given that this is a thick puppy and I have nothing to lose, I'll probably continue sanding it with some 400 or 600 to see how deep the damage goes.

In all likelihood, this probably means that a new strop might be coming for Christmas. Normally, I would say "Whee!" to new stuff but I kind of like using my old beater. In addition to this one and the paddle strop, I've had a Illinois, and 2 Star Stops (2" + 3" Bid Daddy) and found them all nice enough but nothing OMG-ish, if you know what I mean. So this time out it will either be a Tony Miller or a Kanayama 3. Any thoughts?

rockviper said:

So this time out it will either be a Tony Miller AND Kanayama 3. Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

Fixed it for you

I have both a TM steerhide and a Kanayama #3, and they are both superb strops. They perform differently, but you can't go wrong with either choice. The TM has a lighter draw IMO and is a little more refined than the Kanayama, but the Kanayama has that buttery smooth cordovan draw....I don't think you can go wrong either way!!

It looks like you have removed some of the skin but not all of it. If you have an orbital sander, put some 320 grit paper on that and have at it while the strop is on a fairly straight surface. Go all the way through all the skin and you will end up with Russian style leather. Soak it with Zymol cleaner (it has glycerin in it) and take it for a test- strop. If you like it but find it a bit too slick or it still has dry spots in it, hit it again with Zymol, wait a day or so and then sand it again. Unless the leather is cracked all the way through, there is almost certainly a great strop lurking under that surface.

Brian

rockviper said:

I took my kamisori to my coti yesterday evening and everything seemed to be going nicely. Good undercut, suction on the stone, and I was liking the TPT results. Stropped on leather 50x and the TPT'd again and guess what? Absosmurfly no edge at all except right at the toe. Grrrrrrrr. Back to the stone once again, brought the edge up once more and stropped on my paddle strop this time 50x and the edge seems pretty nice.

This made me look at my old strop and I think it might be close to being called toast. It seemed to have a bunch of funny textured areas which it didn't seem to have before. That doesn't seem right. A little palm-heel rubbing with some pressure definitely showed that there are many rougher patches on the strop. I took some 1500 grit sandpaper lightly to it (wrapped around a plastic pipe for evenness). Didn't like what I was seeing, so used some 400 grit to expedite things and this is what I get.....


The darker areas are the "raised" rougher spots and they're all over the place. Luckily the leather is thick enough that I can just flip it to the other side to use if I want to, and thankfully, I have my paddle strop as well. Given that this is a thick puppy and I have nothing to lose, I'll probably continue sanding it with some 400 or 600 to see how deep the damage goes.

In all likelihood, this probably means that a new strop might be coming for Christmas. Normally, I would say "Whee!" to new stuff but I kind of like using my old beater. In addition to this one and the paddle strop, I've had a Illinois, and 2 Star Stops (2" + 3" Bid Daddy) and found them all nice enough but nothing OMG-ish, if you know what I mean. So this time out it will either be a Tony Miller or a Kanayama 3. Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

I have a TM. I don't think I will ever buy anything else...except for maybe one of his "Plain Vanilla" models as a travel strop.

BDF said:

It looks like you have removed some of the skin but not all of it. If you have an orbital sander, put some 320 grit paper on that and have at it while the strop is on a fairly straight surface. Go all the way through all the skin and you will end up with Russian style leather. Soak it with Zymol cleaner (it has glycerin in it) and take it for a test- strop. If you like it but find it a bit too slick or it still has dry spots in it, hit it again with Zymol, wait a day or so and then sand it again. Unless the leather is cracked all the way through, there is almost certainly a great strop lurking under that surface.

Brian

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Thanks, this is pretty close to what I was planning on trying (minus the Zymol). Reviving this strop for the second time (did it a few months ago when it first came into my possession) is my main goal.

I find Zymol to be very interesting and very effective stuff on strops. It softens them and adds pliability but at the same time it adds a certain slickness that foot oil or other leather treatments lack. Just my opinion and limited experience but draw does not equal strop effectiveness. In fact, my experience is leaning the opposite way although I am not quite willing to say that that is so yet.

Brian

rockviper said:

Thanks, this is pretty close to what I was planning on trying (minus the Zymol). Reviving this strop for the second time (did it a few months ago when it first came into my possession) is my main goal.

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I don't see anything wrong with the strop that can't be fixed, to be honest. Smooth it out with the sandpaper, go back to the 1500 (or whatever you like) to refinish it, oil it up and it should work fine.

I certainly don't see any cracks. Looks like it got a little wet on the surface and some area's swelled up a bit. Oh and the dark spots aren't the "raised" spots. The light spots are... because that's what you've been sanding. Unless those area's were darker than the rest of the strop prior to sanding? Which would agree with my suspicion that the strop got wet.
Still buy the Kanayama though.

Sanding seems to be working, but I only had 5 minutes of battery yesterday to work with. The strop hasn't been wet since I lathered it up a few months ago when I was first playing with it and the dark spots are actually kind of wrinkley. When I close my eyes and run my fingers lightly over the strop, they actually catch on the dark spots. The leather is nice and thick, so losing a mm or two isn't going to hurt much.

Spent a bunch of time on the strop today with 240 grit on the sander and while the leather was pebbling, the darker colour was still there in full bloom in a bunch of places. Dropped down to 50 grit with a sanding block as I figured there was not a lot to lose, and this would be the quickest way to remove the top level of leather and get down to an even surface.

Let me tell you, 50-grit works fast!
.... but even after 5 minutes (I think), it still didn't get down enough to even out all of the darker stuff. However, closing my eyes, I ran my fingertips up and down and they did not detect any "grippier" sections like in the first pic in the thread. Moved back to the 240-grit on the sander and the underlying dark areas began to resurface a little, but my fingers could still not detect them, so I think I'm doing okay. Who knows.

Finished off with 1500-grit wrapped around a plastic pipe. It's a big jump from 240 to 1500, I know, but it's all I have right now. The leather feels suedey and brushing it different ways confirms the suede texture. One thing that's good though, is that it feels much smoother than the (long replaced) suede that came on my TI paddle strop.

I don't think I'll condition the strop with anything yet, but will use it "naked" to see how it performs. I would not be surprised to have to take it down some more, especially since the very edges seem to be "gunky" and rougher than the rest.

Glad to see you moved to hand sanding. I've been using vegetable-tanned belts for machinery and hand-sanding them following the length starting with regular 80x then 120x and 220x with pretty good "Russian leather" like results. I also brush and vacuum the leather surface after each grit to remove leather and loosened abrasive.

I'm concerned about the black lines in your pix though. What do you suppose is the cause of them?

The lines are actually the wonderful deep brown that the strop was when I first refurbished it months ago.

It looks like I still need to sand more if I want to get down to "new" leather on this old strop, but for now, we'll see how it goes.

Ah, that does look like a nice strop. I have an old Russian shell, "non com pare" that I like quite a lot, apart from a bend caused by a previous owner storing it improperly.

Decided to revisit my strop this evening as not much on the tele and not up to studying chess (geek!! ).

Here's what it looked like at the start. As you can see, lots of the darker grain has resurfaced over the past month and sometimes it feels as if it grabs the razor just a bit.


After 2 sheets of 150 grit sandpaper, backed by a drywaller's sandpaper block,....

I get to this...


It feels smooth, but there's lots of colour variation, which changes dramatically based upon how you rub the grain. I think this had to have been soaked in oil a long, long time ago. I bet I could just keep on sanding until I see light on the other side... and that light would have the darker grain as well.


Therefore, I this this is as good as it's going to get from sanding, so I switched over to 400 grit sandpaper. One whole sheet later, it actually looks worse than when I started out.


However, it is very smooth (yes, just from 400 grit) and even has a sheen on it again after about 2 minutes of rubbing the heel of my hand on it.

What a rough looking bugger it is, but it is my strop and I will make do with it through all of the upcoming year.... I hope!

Have you hit it with a glass bottle? Burnishing the leather helped me immensely with both of my strop restores.

Personally I made some lather from an old puck of tallow based soap that had no scent left and threw some on the strop then hit it with just the glass. Once you are finished with the lather keep using just the bottle on the strop until it gets to where you like it.

I was offered a trade for a coti I recently had on the BST for a TM 2.5" Heirloom Old No.2 strop and thought it quite the timely opportunity given the fun I'm having with my current strop. It showed up today.


Holy Jumpings! I had no idea a strop could feel so nice. The leather and linen are so soft, it's not funny. Nice heavy duty hardware is just the icing on the cake. I think my old strop will see kitchen knife duty and it's cotton component used for TI White paste.

Beautiful strop Sir, I have a 3" Red Latigo, and I only thought I knew how a strop was supposed to feel before I got it. Enjoy it Sir!

rockviper said:

Holy Jumpings! I had no idea a strop could feel so nice. The leather and linen are so soft, it's not funny. Nice heavy duty hardware is just the icing on the cake.

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They are just beautiful.
Have one and may have to get another.
Myron

Taking advantage of what very well might be the last nice weekend of the summer, I spent some time with the strop in the backyard.

Weapons of choice:
1) Patience
2) 150 grit
3) 400 grit
4) 1500 grit (I had nothing in between )
5) DMT EEF 8x3
6) lots of palm heel rubbing

I used the non-diamond side of the DMT to wrap the sandpaper around, providing me a flat sanding surface. The leather just started rolling off so fast with the 150 grit that I decided to stop and just heel rub. Yup, lots of leather rolling. After doing what I could to remove any junk leather with the palm heel, I switched back to the 150 grit.

Spent around 15 mnutes with it, using the DMT weight to give nice even pressure all along the strop. Every minute of so, I finger brushed and then palm rubbed a bunch more to remove any rolled leather.

Switched over to the 400 grit + DMT and did the same thing for about 20 minutes. Starting to get some shine, but the edges were still very rough. I ignored that and just focused on getting some nice, even "polish" up the length of the strop as best I could.

Moved on to the 1500 grit + DMT and did the same for about 10 minutes, throwing in finger brushing and palm rubbing along the way. Then moved on to the DMT EEF itsself to see what would happen. Shiny shiny shiny ... well for the most part. The edges were still cooked, but an exacto knife and a straight edge saw the strop shrink to a 2" width and I lopped off about 1.5 - 2" off both ends to remove the junk leather there.

Using the 1500 grit to smooth the new edges, followed by some light work on the strop itself. More DMT EEF rubbing and some good easy, but heat-generating, palm heel rubbing resulted in something that's not perfect, but is WAY better than what it was. I cannot feel the non-shiny parts of the strop, and close examination has it being "below" the stropping surface.

The mystery of why I have been having so much "fun" with this strop is solved. I noticed what appeared to be a scratch on the backside, which seemed to be more than just a surface one. Gave the strop a little flex and ....... kapowie!