Material for strop backing

[Craig]

The stuff I've got is veg tanned, so no worries there. Flat & uniform doesn't seem like a problem either. I'm pretty sure what I've got is a few lengths of top-grain leather designed for upholstering furniture, which means it's been machine thinned & flattened. The smooth side, designed to be the surface I'm sure, is useless to me, but the rougher back feels almost exactly like my old hand american strop. It might not work out, I worry mostly that it's a little thin. Most strops are I believe made from the same surface gotten at from the other (ie. inside) side of the leather, which produces thicker product. But really, this is just a pet project I'm undertaking because the leather was free and it's a little interesting. If it doesn't work out I'll just order a new one online, no biggie.

What's this about compressing and exposing the cells of the leather? Are we talking leaving it under a dictionary for a few hours, or something more complicated?

[Craig]

I finally found a solution to this dilemma. Went into the gf's parent's cottage's basement and found a stack of cherry wood cut up into neat little oh...3x4x14 or so blocks. There are maybe 30 of them left, so I liberated a couple. Apparently they've had the wood for 30 years or so dating back to a long-gone wood shop, sold off everything they could, and cut the rest up into blocks to use as firewood. Yes, they've been burning perfectly good blocks of cherry. Some other stuff like mahogany and walnut too, but I didn't see any of it lying around any more.

[JohnnyChance]

Glue a bunch of those together, get them cut into 2" thick slabs and then sanded and blamo, you have 6 cutting boards (assuming the 3x4 end is the end grain portion of those chunks). Give em as gifts or sell some to pay for the cuttings and sanding! Just need some titebond III and some clamps!

[Craig]

They burn really nicely.

[99Limited]

They burn really nicely.

You should smoke some fish, chicken or pork with that wood.

[EdipisReks]

veg tanned furniture upholstery leather is what i use. i've tried both split and smooth, bare and with compound, and i've found that i get the best result with split leather that has a soft nap. i strop with .5 CrO on balsa, then .25 diamond on split grain, and then bare split grain. i have my leather attached to the same balsa blocks i use for the balsa strops.

[Jim]

Here are my bench strops for ideas-

[99Limited]

Wow, Jim those strops are purdy.

[JohnnyChance]

Labeled and everything!

[Eamon Burke]

That green strop(cromium oxide?) is loaded about as nice as I've ever seen. Did you spray it?