Strop

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Strop, razor and grindstone

Stropes are elongated strips of leather that are used to treat a blade to improve sharpness .

use

They are often used after sharpening a knife on the whetstone . With razors , they are used before every shave.

The blade is drawn flat over the leather with little pressure. The movement is always in the direction of the back of the blade. This straightens the burr and polishes the cutting edge. With pure leather without abrasive paste, the removal of material is in the nanometer range.

Types of strop

The "hanging strap" is a strip of leather that is attached to a fixed point at one end using suitable fittings and taut with the hand at the other end. This model is often used to treat straight razors for shaving. The original form is likely to have been the trouser belt, which was fastened somewhere with a buckle and held at the end by hand.

Often the back of these straps is supplemented with a strip of linen with an abrasive that allows prior sanding.

"Straps" are wooden blocks that are glued with leather and can have a handle. The sides can be prepared in different ways (different grinding pastes or without). There are also butt straps where the leather is hollowly attached to the block (also with a tensioning screw).

Butt straps are easier to use because they can be hand held without using force. Hanging straps, on the other hand, always need a suspension point or a flat surface. But they are easy to take with you when traveling.

The term "stropping strap" is misleading: the blade is guided like on a hanging strap, neither the blade nor the strap is struck. The name probably comes from the fact that this type of belt was used for a certain type of knife ("push knife").

Stropes can be prepared to adapt their properties to specific applications. To do this, the top of the belt is coated with grease or abrasive paste. A belt treated with abrasive paste is also called a "paste belt".

criticism

Many users (especially those of straight razors) complain about the change in the cutting geometry of the blade when using a hanging strap or a butt strap with hollow leather: the cutting edge "rounds" and becomes " convex ". This is particularly intolerable for blades for a microtome or knives for microscopic thin sections. The leather that is firmly glued to a block is preferable here.

Working with the strop is called “leathering” or “leathering”. It requires skill and guidance so as not to damage the belt or the blade.

Web links

Wiktionary: Strop  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. What does stropping do? In: scienceofsharp. August 13, 2014. Retrieved September 29, 2017 .