- Joined
- Apr 15, 2014
- Messages
- 483
Hey... got a strop?
I wanted access to more strops, and I couldn't deal with paying 35$ for a decent strop up here in Canada, so I decided to make my own.
What you're lookin' at is a lineup of six 12" strops loaded with .5 micron, something like 4 micron compound, freakin 220 grit valve grinding paste lol, Tormek 8k paste, a bare strop, and then another bare strop sanded to a nice suede and will be loaded with more green compound because, really, I feel 1 to half micron stropping compound is really where the function of the strop shines. The rest were just for fun.
I wanted these strops to be at least half way decent quality, so I skipped the pine wood and bought 6 feet of red oak finishing lumber. They are really nice bases! Each foot cost about as much as an 8' 2x4 though, so if you just don't care about the look, slice up some pine instead.
Oooooh! What?! I finally received a knife gift that has both sentimental value and it's actually a good knife? That's right. I was gifted the Spyderco Native 5 in S110V by my old man, which makes it probably the best and most wholly thoughtful gift I've ever received. Super blessed to call that man my father. What a knife!
Anyway, I used that leeethal steel to cut my leather blanks to length. I also don't recommend you cut yours on your carpet unless it's as shitty as mine is.
Time to glue 'em up!
I used contact cement. I don't really recommend using anything else. Contact cement is really nice to spread and coat your surface properly with, it is one of the easier super-class glues to clean up, it is far cheaper than epoxy, and it is both fast and slow: it doesn't dry too fast to stress you out while you're working, yet 30 minutes after application, it is good to go for a strong, permanent hold.
As you can see in the photo, I highly recommend you use this stuff in an enclosed space. I am higher than the Empire State right now.
Just kidding, do it in as open a space as possible, obviously. It was just too cold for me to use it outside.
Whew! Those are lookin' pretty good, boys! 2 smooth, 4 suede.
Let's put some feet on those, make 'em real professional...
But the leather needs to be lubricated. It's a little dry. Get the mineral oil! I have also used olive oil on strops for years. There is no smell, there is no rotting, or anything like that. But mineral oil is also cheap and extremely neutral/colorless/odorless, so really, why would you use anything else?
Looks considerably nicer with a good coat of oil, eh?
Time for some compound!
So I bought two huge bricks of compound and the wax matrix is way too hard to just scrub onto the leather. Some makers, like Veritas and SharpeningSupplies use a much softer matrix that draws on very smoothly, but not this stuff.
So what you can do is scrape a bunch of shavings onto a piece of paper. You can then use that paper to funnel them into a small container. Add some mineral oil. It will soften the wax into a really nice paste. You can accelerate the process by placing the mixture in front of a space heater for a couple minutes. The warm oil will mix very nicely, and it is an absolute dream to apply the paste to your strop
And when the mixture cools, you have a nice soft paste that can be smeared easily with your fingertip!
Next up were a couple experiments:
Second in from the right was the one I was most excited to try. It is literally 220 grit silicon carbide paste lol. It is Permatex Valve Grinding Compound. I did a proof of concept on some cardboard, stropping my Real Steel H5 and I quickly raised a burr. After it was on the leather, I fully reprofiled the edge bevel to a nice convex lol. Pretty cool. So you could literally sharpen your knife entirely on nothing but strops.
The next one, the white one there, is Tormek 8k paste which works very nicely too as a finishing strop that is a little more aggressive than standard half micron green compound.
Both of those strops are dry though, so they're not ideal. I might smear an extremely thin layer of silicon grease, or petroleum jelly on them to hold the compound better. But you gotta be careful, because it's easy to use too much and then your blade just wipes it off of your strop like a butter knife.
Finally, I am upgrading my Ken Schwartz 1 micron CBN which provided me quite peculiar results. I sort of wonder if the abrasive density was low or something because fresh green compound would work severalfold faster...
So we're goin' diamonds!
That's my new 12" strop, smooth side, and a 5g syringe of 1 micron diamond paste from Norton.
I applied about a gram and a half to my surface:
Although I have never had any issues with green compound, I do like to have either diamonds or CBN on hand as a kind of nuclear option. I do tend to doubt a lot of the statements about green compound and alumina not working properly on some steels as I personally haven't run into any of these problems, but in the case that I do, I wish to be prepared.
Anyway, thanks for checkin' out the new stropping arsenal. Again, I really think anything other than 1-0.5 micron compound on leather is superfluous, but a lot of fun can be had stropping on various abrasives for various finishes. I'm still pretty pumped about the 220 grit paste lol. Stropping to a toothy ~800 finish is pretty neat, and the smooth convexity is sick!
I wanted access to more strops, and I couldn't deal with paying 35$ for a decent strop up here in Canada, so I decided to make my own.
What you're lookin' at is a lineup of six 12" strops loaded with .5 micron, something like 4 micron compound, freakin 220 grit valve grinding paste lol, Tormek 8k paste, a bare strop, and then another bare strop sanded to a nice suede and will be loaded with more green compound because, really, I feel 1 to half micron stropping compound is really where the function of the strop shines. The rest were just for fun.
I wanted these strops to be at least half way decent quality, so I skipped the pine wood and bought 6 feet of red oak finishing lumber. They are really nice bases! Each foot cost about as much as an 8' 2x4 though, so if you just don't care about the look, slice up some pine instead.
Oooooh! What?! I finally received a knife gift that has both sentimental value and it's actually a good knife? That's right. I was gifted the Spyderco Native 5 in S110V by my old man, which makes it probably the best and most wholly thoughtful gift I've ever received. Super blessed to call that man my father. What a knife!
Anyway, I used that leeethal steel to cut my leather blanks to length. I also don't recommend you cut yours on your carpet unless it's as shitty as mine is.
Time to glue 'em up!
I used contact cement. I don't really recommend using anything else. Contact cement is really nice to spread and coat your surface properly with, it is one of the easier super-class glues to clean up, it is far cheaper than epoxy, and it is both fast and slow: it doesn't dry too fast to stress you out while you're working, yet 30 minutes after application, it is good to go for a strong, permanent hold.
As you can see in the photo, I highly recommend you use this stuff in an enclosed space. I am higher than the Empire State right now.
Just kidding, do it in as open a space as possible, obviously. It was just too cold for me to use it outside.
Whew! Those are lookin' pretty good, boys! 2 smooth, 4 suede.
Let's put some feet on those, make 'em real professional...
But the leather needs to be lubricated. It's a little dry. Get the mineral oil! I have also used olive oil on strops for years. There is no smell, there is no rotting, or anything like that. But mineral oil is also cheap and extremely neutral/colorless/odorless, so really, why would you use anything else?
Looks considerably nicer with a good coat of oil, eh?
Time for some compound!
So I bought two huge bricks of compound and the wax matrix is way too hard to just scrub onto the leather. Some makers, like Veritas and SharpeningSupplies use a much softer matrix that draws on very smoothly, but not this stuff.
So what you can do is scrape a bunch of shavings onto a piece of paper. You can then use that paper to funnel them into a small container. Add some mineral oil. It will soften the wax into a really nice paste. You can accelerate the process by placing the mixture in front of a space heater for a couple minutes. The warm oil will mix very nicely, and it is an absolute dream to apply the paste to your strop
And when the mixture cools, you have a nice soft paste that can be smeared easily with your fingertip!
Next up were a couple experiments:
Second in from the right was the one I was most excited to try. It is literally 220 grit silicon carbide paste lol. It is Permatex Valve Grinding Compound. I did a proof of concept on some cardboard, stropping my Real Steel H5 and I quickly raised a burr. After it was on the leather, I fully reprofiled the edge bevel to a nice convex lol. Pretty cool. So you could literally sharpen your knife entirely on nothing but strops.
The next one, the white one there, is Tormek 8k paste which works very nicely too as a finishing strop that is a little more aggressive than standard half micron green compound.
Both of those strops are dry though, so they're not ideal. I might smear an extremely thin layer of silicon grease, or petroleum jelly on them to hold the compound better. But you gotta be careful, because it's easy to use too much and then your blade just wipes it off of your strop like a butter knife.
Finally, I am upgrading my Ken Schwartz 1 micron CBN which provided me quite peculiar results. I sort of wonder if the abrasive density was low or something because fresh green compound would work severalfold faster...
So we're goin' diamonds!
That's my new 12" strop, smooth side, and a 5g syringe of 1 micron diamond paste from Norton.
I applied about a gram and a half to my surface:
Although I have never had any issues with green compound, I do like to have either diamonds or CBN on hand as a kind of nuclear option. I do tend to doubt a lot of the statements about green compound and alumina not working properly on some steels as I personally haven't run into any of these problems, but in the case that I do, I wish to be prepared.
Anyway, thanks for checkin' out the new stropping arsenal. Again, I really think anything other than 1-0.5 micron compound on leather is superfluous, but a lot of fun can be had stropping on various abrasives for various finishes. I'm still pretty pumped about the 220 grit paste lol. Stropping to a toothy ~800 finish is pretty neat, and the smooth convexity is sick!
Last edited:
