# Cork vs. Leather Strops, what is your preference?



## Bigbbaillie (Sep 1, 2020)

In the market for a nicer strop and wondering if there is really much of a difference between these materials.


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## Ruso (Sep 1, 2020)

To my knowledge cork is not used for stroping usually. 
As for strop and kitchen knives goes, my preference is not to strop during sharpening and leather strop loaded with 1micron diamond spray/paste to refresh the edges quickly.


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## parbaked (Sep 1, 2020)

Ruso said:


> To my knowledge cork is not used for stroping usually.


I use this rubberized cork with 1 micron chromium oxide.





I prefer it to leather...









Rubberized Cork Strop


Rubberized cork strop for de-burring knives; works best when chromium oxide is applied. 14" x 3"




bernal-cutlery.shoplightspeed.com


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## Kawa (Sep 1, 2020)

From what im reading its all personal preference. No one is right, no one is wrong. I think for kitchen knives your dont 'need' fancy stuff. Mr. Kippington informed me that simple cardboard can do all thats needed for kitchen use...

Some strop on their highest gritt stone, some on denim, on balsa, newspaper, cardboard, leather.... And then with all these materials you can go loaded or unloaded. If you go loaded you can go a very wide range of gritts...

I dont think it matters at the end.

If you want to try what suites you best, try to make some strops yourself. Its way cheaper and fun if you like to test multiple strops.

- Get wood from a hardware store. Out of their 'disposal bin'. Most of the times you can have a piece for free
- Leather from a shoe repairsman (few bucks)
- Denim, just take your oldest jeans
- Cardboard, buy Kellogs honey pow-pow rainbow loops


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## kayman67 (Sep 1, 2020)

There are some caveats to this approach. As simple as stropping seems, if it's not well done on proper stuff for what's required, the perceived value, at least, could be way off compared to what actually stropping can offer. 
At home, most people could/should actually sharpen once in a blue moon. The rest is pure maintenance and, if not done in a reactive way, goes a lot longer than imagined.


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## M1k3 (Sep 1, 2020)

Cardboard, paper or other cheap/free stuff. A piece of balsa wood for a cheap, permanent solution.


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## jacko9 (Sep 1, 2020)

I like ring porous hardwood because I have it in my shop and can cut it to size and load it with 0.75 micron CBN Emulsion. The one I'm currently using is cherry wood and I cut it to fit the size of a Shapton Pro Stone plastic box.


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## spaceconvoy (Sep 1, 2020)

Kawa said:


> - Cardboard, buy Kellogs honey pow-pow rainbow loops


I disagree, I feel the cardboard from General Mills Marshmallow Blasted Diabet'Os is a superior strop material.

More seriously, if you're looking for a nicer strop I'd recommend horse leather epoxied to a dimensionally-stable backing. Any old piece of leather is likely to be too soft and round your edges. And any old piece of wood from a big box store scrap bin might warp on you over time. If you really want something nice I'd recommend getting a piece of marine-grade teak - I bought one 1x3x12" piece for less than $25 shipped off the internet.

Might seem silly to the just-strop-on-a-greasy-old-pizza-box crowd, but they wouldn't tell you "you don't need something nicer" if you asked for a knife recommendation. I say make the nicest strop you can, because when you get really good at sharpening it'll mostly sit on your shelf as decoration


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## jacko9 (Sep 1, 2020)

spaceconvoy said:


> I disagree, I feel the cardboard from General Mills Marshmallow Blasted Diabet'Os is a superior strop material.
> 
> More seriously, if you're looking for a nicer strop I'd recommend horse leather epoxied to a dimensionally-stable backing. Any old piece of leather is likely to be too soft and round your edges. And any old piece of wood from a big box store scrap bin might warp on you over time. If you really want something nice I'd recommend getting a piece of marine-grade teak - I bought one 1x3x12" piece for less than $25 shipped off the internet.
> 
> Might seem silly to the just-strop-on-a-greasy-old-pizza-box crowd, but they wouldn't tell you "you don't need something nicer" if you asked for a knife recommendation. I say make the nicest strop you can, because when you get really good at sharpening it'll mostly sit on your shelf as decoration



What you are saying about wood warping over time is correct specially if it's in a kitchen environment. Since most everybody on here knows how to sharpen I would suggest that you pick up a used wood hand plane (real cheap) and sharpen it and then take a few shavings off the wood surface whenever needed.


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## kayman67 (Sep 1, 2020)

There are all kinds of ways to prevent warped wood. Should be an easy fix.


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## Forty Ounce (Sep 2, 2020)

spaceconvoy said:


> Might seem silly to the just-strop-on-a-greasy-old-pizza-box crowd, but they wouldn't tell you "you don't need something nicer" if you asked for a knife recommendation. I say make the nicest strop you can, because when you get really good at sharpening it'll mostly sit on your shelf as decoration


This is so true.. lol. I searched and searched for the perfect strop (I have 7). Nowadays, I'm totally against stropping on leather. Chromium oxide is another thing that should never be used on kitchen knives, it burnishes the edge and rounds it. If you want really sharp edges with lots of teeth, strop on stone and the rough side of a sponge (thank you JKI!).


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## kayman67 (Sep 2, 2020)

Surface matters the most for some given needs. It's better to have the right surface even clean, than the wrong surface with abrasives. If you have a damaged edge or some kind of micro burr, I've seen that sometimes something like fine leather (that you might read about as being the best stropping leather in the world or whatever), even with a fairly decent abrasive, won't deal with it fast enough or at all. Problem with stropping is that the more you see it doesn't work like you want, the more aggressive you tend to be and for too long. Ideally, stropping should be only a couple of passes. If that's not enough, something needs changing. 
CrOx can't really cut well that many demanding alloys once the grit gets medium to high. It will start to burnish the edge and eventually round it. Combine it with the wrong surface, as above, and it multiples. I've seen so many people having this problem. I know that most recommended compound is something like "put some green on it and you'll be fine", but these days is not always the case. And, maybe, never was. I don't know. I guess, here is where the "scary sharp" Carter was taking about, comes to light or not.


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## Bear (Sep 2, 2020)

spaceconvoy said:


> I disagree, I feel the cardboard from General Mills Marshmallow Blasted Diabet'Os is a superior strop material.
> 
> More seriously, if you're looking for a nicer strop I'd recommend horse leather epoxied to a dimensionally-stable backing. Any old piece of leather is likely to be too soft and round your edges. And any old piece of wood from a big box store scrap bin might warp on you over time. If you really want something nice I'd recommend getting a piece of marine-grade teak - I bought one 1x3x12" piece for less than $25 shipped off the internet.
> 
> Might seem silly to the just-strop-on-a-greasy-old-pizza-box crowd, but they wouldn't tell you "you don't need something nicer" if you asked for a knife recommendation. I say make the nicest strop you can, because when you get really good at sharpening it'll mostly sit on your shelf as decoration


Horse butt glued to a piece of Corian (no compound) is my preferred strop, it may be overkill but that's the way I roll.


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## adam92 (Sep 2, 2020)

Jon recommend me the newspaper for stropping, work better than my leather.

Sometimes I use cardboard when I run out newspapers, both work perfectly for all mine knives.


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## Ruso (Sep 2, 2020)

How can you run out of newspaper? How many knives do you strop per hour?


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## juice (Sep 2, 2020)

Ruso said:


> How can you run out of newspaper?


By never having any? Ever? I haven't had newspaper in the place for a decade or more.


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## Ruso (Sep 2, 2020)

juice said:


> By never having any? Ever? I haven't had newspaper in the place for a decade or more.


Yea, but if you strop on it, I assume you would get/buy at least one newspaper. Single normal size newspaper should last several years in home use environment when used for stropping.


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## Kawa (Sep 2, 2020)

How do you all use a newspaper strop anyway?
Do you fold it around wood, which would end up looking like a normal strop?
Or do you just lay it flat on a table for example?

Same question could be asked for cardboard...

I can imagine you want it fixed/steady to some firm back... but folding around wood will never make a smooth surface I can imagine, since you use a lot of layers with newspaper instead of one single sheet.. It wont behave like you wrap up a present i think..?


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## ian (Sep 2, 2020)

Kawa said:


> Same question could be asked for cardboard...


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## M1k3 (Sep 2, 2020)

juice said:


> By never having any? Ever? I haven't had newspaper in the place for a decade or more.


I like those free ad things for apartments, vehicles, local news or entertainment. Free strop outside nearly every grocery, liquor or music store. Might be different downunder?


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## ian (Sep 2, 2020)

One cereal box makes at least 8 strops.


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## Ruso (Sep 2, 2020)

^Show off!


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## ian (Sep 2, 2020)

Wait wait, I bet I can even get 10!


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## juice (Sep 2, 2020)

M1k3 said:


> I like those free ad things for apartments, vehicles, local news or entertainment. Free strop outside nearly every grocery, liquor or music store. Might be different downunder?


Yeah, I'm in a pretty affluent inner-city area (for another couple of months, until we move out to the boonies), and we get nothing like that delivered, and the only place I ever see a free newspaper is at the Asian supermarket a couple of km away. I guess newspapers exist in newsagents, along with magazines and so on, but I never go into them, either  

We used to get a free local weekly paper, and advertising flyers, but haven't for years. Not sure what it's like in other areas, I rarely leave my local bubble. If it's not in walking distance, I generally don't go there. That's gonna change when we go bush, for sure :-D

I was thinking about this yesterday, wondering what I'm going to wrap the crockery in, and so on...


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## M1k3 (Sep 2, 2020)

juice said:


> Yeah, I'm in a pretty affluent inner-city area (for another couple of months, until we move out to the boonies), and we get nothing like that delivered, and the only place I ever see a free newspaper is at the Asian supermarket a couple of km away. I guess newspapers exist in newsagents, along with magazines and so on, but I never go into them, either
> 
> We used to get a free local weekly paper, and advertising flyers, but haven't for years. Not sure what it's like in other areas, I rarely leave my local bubble. If it's not in walking distance, I generally don't go there. That's gonna change when we go bush, for sure :-D
> 
> I was thinking about this yesterday, wondering what I'm going to wrap the crockery in, and so on...


Maybe Bunnings or some other place has a mailing list for a catalog?


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## juice (Sep 2, 2020)

M1k3 said:


> Maybe Bunnings or some other place has a mailing list for a catalog?


Ah, good point!! Bunnings has EVERYTHING!


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## M1k3 (Sep 2, 2020)

ian said:


> One cereal box makes at least 8 strops.
> 
> View attachment 92983


Are we talking the regular or the super jumbo mega-family size?


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## ian (Sep 2, 2020)

M1k3 said:


> Are we talking the regular or the super jumbo mega-family size?





It’s family size. My secret is out.


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## Kawa (Sep 3, 2020)

M1k3 said:


> Are we talking the regular or the super jumbo mega-family size?



You mean, the American size?


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## M1k3 (Sep 3, 2020)

Kawa said:


> You mean, the American size?


We have more than one size still. There's big, bigger and Texas.


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## MarcelNL (Sep 3, 2020)

even the people are bigger in Texas, that's for sure.


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## MarcelNL (Sep 3, 2020)

perhaps a side track, but did anyone ever research paper/cardboard for stropping?
I don't have a 'proper' strop (yet?) and typically use my (softish) cutting board OR some card board and it does do something good.

Having been to a couple of artists supplyers over the years I recall they have a wealth of types of paper and cardboard that might be a great surface for stropping. I imagine you want something firm, so not too thick, with uniform surface without fibers. I've seen anything from cardboard several mm thich to rice paper that stays afloat when dropped...


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## Kawa (Sep 3, 2020)

The thing that cardboard en newspaper have in common is that they are both abbrasive. I think it is actually their 'fibers' thats makes them suited.
Cardboard and newspaper are so soft compared to knivessteel, that you need a 'very coarse grained' piece of it to be able to abrade steel. 


But I dont know if fibers is the word im looking for. Toilet paper is full of fibers aswell, but i think it isnt compressed enough to be hard enough to cut into steel...

Felt is 110% fibers only, but very hard and compressed. Some strop on this....

Interessting indeed, what makes a material suited for stropping...
Whatever it is, you wont get it cheaper then newspaper or cardboard.


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## Desert Rat (Sep 3, 2020)

I thought the ink had somthing to do with newspapers performance as a strop? I have played around with it by wrapping it around a stone. It's effective but I'm just not much a strop guy when it comes to knifes.


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## applepieforbreakfast (Sep 3, 2020)

I thought it was the silicates in the paper?


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## M1k3 (Sep 3, 2020)

It's obviously nano-Warlocks working magic on the edge.


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## MarcelNL (Sep 3, 2020)

M1k3 said:


> It's obviously nano-Warlocks working magic on the edge.


definetely that, I still wonder what they eat....is it the paper pulp? leather nor cork are harder than steel, it;s likley the granularity of the surface being fine enough to persuade minuscule piezes of metal to fold over and break off without ripping nto the new edge...but that is my theory, nobody ever used a scanning electron microscope to see?

edit: someone did; Science of sharp: Cool SEM microscopy of a blade


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