What's new

Advice Needed for Diamond Spray on Leather Strop

I was gifted a nice Kanayama leather strop with handle, #4196, I believe. Recently, I became aware of diamond sprays for stropping, and I'm wondering what the B&B community's advice would be, whether not to use or to use, and if so, the directions. It is my only strop, and the presence of the handle makes it impossible to use the rough side.
 
My advice would be a Kanayama is far to nice for use with any type of paste or spray. If you want to try the diamond sprays you can do it on canvas or seat belt material or almost anything. Save your nice leather to be used bare.
 
They have cheap cloth strops on ebay. Or.get 10 feet of nylon webbing or hemp and cut them to try different things. I.wouldn't use paste on leather anyway. Especially a kanayama. You can cut the.cloth and use a tarp clip for.hardware
if you go that way. There's a good.chance you may try more than 1 paste.
 
They have cheap cloth strops on ebay. Or.get 10 feet of nylon webbing or hemp and cut them to try different things. I.wouldn't use paste on leather anyway. Especially a kanayama. You can cut the.cloth and use a tarp clip for.hardware
if you go that way. There's a good.chance you may try more than 1 paste.
thanks!
 
Good advice given above. Don't mess up a Kanayama. I made some cheap paddle strops for experimenting with sprays & pastes. Veg tanned leather from Hobby Lobby glued to flat wood and paste away.
 
Abrasive pastes and sprays can be used on a variety of materials (balsa, basswood, cloth, tooling leather, etc.). One method I have tried recently is to purchase the superfine microfiber cloth wipes designed to clean the screens of computers and cell phones. You can use Elmer's glue sticks to coat a flat piece of wood, plastic, glass or stone (marble, granite, etc.) and then place the microfiber cloth over the backing and trim it to size once the glue dries. Just make sure it is glued securely edge to edge and there are no wrinkles in the cloth. This works quite well for both pastes and sprays.

I also have a strop I purchased from CKTG that has thin kangaroo leather glued to glass. I use it for my 0.1 micron CBN spray. It works quite well, but it is significantly more expensive than the DIY strops.

I would never recommend messing up a high quality leather strop by adding abrasive pastes or sprays.
 
No to paste on the Kanayama for two reasons, 1st - no need to use a cordovan strop for an abrasive compound, there is nothing to gain there.
And 2 - cordovan makes a lousy substrate for abrasive pastes.

I usually start off testing abrasive compounds on heavyweight cotton webbing. I don't like diamond sprays or pastes, but when I do mess with them my substrate of choice would be suede or any leather with a texture or nap. I just had some .1 mono here recently and I was testing it on the back side of some steerhide.
 
Reasonable quality abrasive pastes and even the cheap Chinese diamond goo syringe packages are great if you don't have much money or space or you just wanna experiment with 6 different pastes and an old luggage belt for less than the cost of a slurry stone. There was - in the internet dark ages - a bit of a prejudice against pastes, as an "Old World" technique, although quite why anything razor related that came out of the Old World would be bad or inferior, I dunno...

Nothing gets a blade sharper. Really. Quantum sharp.

I've done many many blades on paste, from bevel set to finish and had nice results. Having said that, I cannot imagine - for myself - wanting to get a blade sharper than, say, Iron Oxide can get it.

"My cloth strop uses a spray that measures 0.003 of a Micro-perimeter, on the Takashi-Belle-Whosis scale" :D Is really really cool stuff, but maybe more than I need for shaving (hair at least). The cost of the CBN type sprays puts me off a little too.

Lots of people - I assume - believe they want or need the sharpest of the sharp of the sharp, and after a while discover that they actually like a smooth coticule edge. Look at Dr Matt, for example. (not that his edges aren't sharp, you know what I mean). No harm in any of it, it's fun to experiment, and for some of us, necessary.
 
Last edited:
No to paste on the Kanayama for two reasons, 1st - no need to use a cordovan strop for an abrasive compound, there is nothing to gain there.
And 2 - cordovan makes a lousy substrate for abrasive pastes.

I usually start off testing abrasive compounds on heavyweight cotton webbing. I don't like diamond sprays or pastes, but when I do mess with them my substrate of choice would be suede or any leather with a texture or nap. I just had some .1 mono here recently and I was testing it on the back side of some steerhide.
I've never been able to find out: are Kanayama actual horse shell or horsehide put through the Cordovan "process"..?
 
I've never been able to find out: are Kanayama actual horse shell or horsehide put through the Cordovan "process"..?
Hah, jumping on here a year later. I only know bought the compound! Got myself a Wacker, too. So to answer your question, it's shell cordovan leather, made from the shell of the rump.
 
Shell Cordovan is a type of leather produced from the membrane underneath the hide on the rump of a horse. It is produced by several different tanneries around the world. I have a strop made from shell tanned by Joseph Clayton and Sons in Chesterfield, England. In the USA, Horween Leather of Chicago produces shell cordovan, but they also produce a series of products tanned using the proprietary Chromexcel process. Since the product is not limited to the small size of the shell membranes, Chromexcel leather is less expensive than shell cordovan. I also have a Tony Miller strop made from Chromexcel horsehide which Tony sells as Novotan horsehide. It is different than shell, but still a superb leather for stropping.
 
Top Bottom