Leather Strop

A leather strop is a flat strip of leather used to polish and refine the cutting edge of a carving blade. Carvers drag the blade along the strop after sharpening to smooth out tiny burrs left on the metal edge. Unlike sharpening stones or sandpaper that grind away metal, stropping simply aligns these microscopic imperfections, producing an ultra-sharp, polished edge. In other words, a strop is a finishing tool that gives your carving knives a razor-sharp finish.

Beginners find leather strops very useful because they make it easy to keep tools sharp. Stropping is simpler and gentler than heavy grinding, since it doesn’t remove much metal; instead it smooths tiny burrs and polishes the edge to peak performance. BeaverCraft notes that regularly using a strop keeps carving knives “razor-sharp” with minimal effort. This means cleaner, more precise cuts and a lower chance of slips when carving.

For context, BeaverCraft’s beginner carving kits highlight stropping tools: they include a leather strap (strop) and polishing paste to teach new carvers how to hone their edges. BeaverCraft even sells dedicated paddle strops made for woodcarving. For example, their dual-sided leather paddle strop (with included compound) is designed to keep blades at “maximum sharpness”. In short, leather strops and honing compounds are core parts of the BeaverCraft toolkit, used to maintain carving tools between whittling sessions.