How to Choose (and use) Your First Strop - Complete Beginner Whittling Lesson

[@fortyyards1397]

You are a great teacher, thank you for the awesome tutorial and video - I've been carving for 2 years and realised I've been stropping totally wrong! Thank you!

[@ginganinja9135]

Best explanation I've seen

[@scottfield598]

Thanks, I’ve been intimidated by my strop for a while. I’ve learned so much from this video. +1 subscriber

[@scottdunn6065]

thanks for the vids, very useful info, q, how to tell when strop is wore out to replace?

[@andreas_baumgarten]

As there is no answer to your question yet: It's really hard to wore out a strop/leather. I have strops for more than 10 years now and they only need some refresh from time to time. Refreshing a strop is really easy. All you need is some sandpaper 60 or 80 grid (or something similar) and a flat piece of wood. Wrap a piece of sandpaper around the flat wood and just rub the sandpaper over the leather. You don't need much pressure. Just enough to rough the leather a little bit There is no need to remove a lot of leather. This way the compound will be more effective while stropping. The leather is getting thinner over the years and this is the only wear I've seen so far on leather strops. Just buy a new piece of leather, around 2 - 3 mm thickness and glue this on top of the old leather, rough side on top (or remove the old leather if possible and if you like). Happy stropping 🙂

[@mikereed4876]

6:47 speak for yourself! thanks for the lessons

[@bradtate158]

How often do you add compound?

[@dywoodcarving]

If you load it well the first time you really won't need to add it often. Weeks, even months, depending on how often you use it. It will start to darken over time, that's the steel coming off and is normal, doesn't mean it won't work. If you start noticing bare areas or you feel like stropping isn't having the same impact as it once did, then it's time to add more compound.

[@edtepperphotoart2264]

i've seen others suggest heating the compound to smooth it out. Thoughts?

[@dywoodcarving]

I've seen that recommendation as well. I haven't ever felt the need to do it as I've had no problems getting uniform coverage on the specific strops and compounds I've used. I assume it would help if you're having trouble spreading it evenly.