Type of wood for a strop - balsa, basswood, something harder?

S

shinbone

Joined
Dec 13, 2005
Messages
90
Hi All,

I am a long-time reader of these forums, but infrequent poster due to still learning so much from just reading. Also, I am a hunter who is interested in a really sharp, long lasting blade for cleaning animals, with a few camp cooking chores on the side. And, I EDC a Lionsteel SR1 in Sleipner steel for general chores around my small hobby farm, although I used it to clean an antelope last week, which it did quite well.

The blade steels I have in my collection of hunting and EDC knives include the aforementioned Sleipner, as well as Niolox, CPM 10v, CPM S30V, CPM M4, and CPM 154. As long as it is a quality steel, I tend to choose knives based on blade shape, and it is just a coincidence that most of my knives are CPM steels.

I sharpen my knives on DMT Dia-Sharp hones using a Buck Honemaster as a guide. I have all the grits in my collection of hones ranging from XX-Coarse to XX-Fine. (After many years of use, I have become unhappy with the Honemaster, and will probably move to a Wicked Edge system soon, but that is a whole ‘nother thread).

For now, I would like to start stropping my knives after coming off the XX-Fine Dia-Sharp (8000 grit, 3 microns) hone. I plan on using diamond pastes for my stropping compound, with a 3 micron, 1 micron, 0.5 micron stropping progression. I know this is overkill for my rough field use of the knives and is just for fun in maintaining my knife edges. Even if/when I switch to the Wicked Edge system, I will still want to strop the edge, so this question will still apply.

I am leaning towards using a wood substrate for my strops, because I am thinking leather will be too soft and will tend to round the edge more than I need for my applications. Am I correct in thinking a wood strop would be best for my use? I see people talk about Balsa as a strop material, and sometime mention Basswood. What would be best for me? Why not got to an even harder wood, such as Maple for a wood strop?

TIA
 
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I think most people use Balsa as a strop material because when you strop you don't have to apply a lot of pressure so you don't need a hardwood.
 
My strop is a double-sided affair (one side plain, the other with chromium oxide paste rubbed in), leather glued to a wooden paddle. Works great. I keep a thick piece of leather with loaded with chromium oxide for field use. I also have a Buck Honemaster, useful for re-profiling. I think I bought it about 40 years ago. The only other I've seen recently was in the Buck Factory museum.
 
The Honemaster is great for its simple effectiveness. I get them on Ebay for $20-$25 in near-new condition. I came close to completely going through one, though, when I re-profiled a Spyderco K2 with its CPM 10V steel. That, and you can sharpen at only one edge-angle has made me decide it might be time to upgrade.
 
Get hardwood and glue balsa to that to keep the damn thing flat. I use dmt diamond stones and green compound on balsa
 
The harder, the better, for a wood strop.

I've not liked balsa for stropping, as it's too soft for my preference. It compresses, dents and dings too easily under a little pressure exerted by the edge of a blade. I've liked using basswood, because it's firmer than balsa AND it's commonly available in pre-cut sizes that work well for a strop, usually found in the same hobby/craft stores as the balsa. And it's inexpensive as well.

Any other firm, smooth & flat, tight-grained wood can work as well. If you happen to have a lot of wood scrap around, there's no harm in trying what you've got. Might be worth sanding the surface of the wood smooth, to maybe ~320-grit or higher, before applying compound.

Some like using MDF (medium density fiberboard) for strops. It's basically super-fine wood fibers densely bound in a resin, compressed under very high pressure. Very flat & smooth, dense (HEAVY) and dimensionally stable. It can work well; but, it's manufacturing process is pretty 'dirty' and fine grit ends up in the finished product, which can leave noticeable scratches on more polished finishes done with sub-micron compounds. It's also more tedious & messy to cut to size (extremely fine dust gets everywhere, when cutting it), and only comes as sheet stock, so far as I know.
 
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My local crafts\arts shop has birchwood and balsa. Same dimensions (e.g. 1000x20x5mm), same price. The Birchwood is harder, denser, tighter, nonporous, heavier, smoother, and has a darker finish\color than balsa. I have tried balsa only. And nowadays only as holder for the PTS method.
As PTS holder, it won't really matter if I used balsa, birch, or bass, I believe.

You should try birchwood.
 
I think you are right in using a hard backed strop. I tried using leather strops and only succeeded in rounding all my edges off. Hard backed stropped I got better edges, no rounding.

Can use printer paper with compound wrapped around a stone as well.

Our member HeavyHanded makes a great hard surface washboard that is great as well.
 
Eh heck, don't over think or price it. Go to your home improvement store and get some 5 gallon paint stir sticks. If one is too flimsy, contact glue a second one on. Still too much give? Go for three. Belt sand the edges, stain, poly, contact glue the leather on and use.
Good enough for this hillbilly. I'm not performing surgery.
 
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shinbone said:
I am leaning towards using a wood substrate for my strops, because I am thinking leather will be too soft and will tend to round the edge more than I need for my applications.
Click to expand...
Well . . . yeah . . .
some will say if your technique is good it won't. I say if your technique is good you don't need a strop period.
I suppose the "truth" is some where in between there.

For the most part I don't get all Technique; I just relax and put the edge tool in a jig and make it so freekin sharp it even scares me. Yes I can do it free hand but when I have a whole stack of stuff to sharpen I enjoy the jig. The last photo is of the jig. I use an Edge Pro for my knives. You can attach wood to a blank aluminum strip for the edge pro to use maple or you can buy the softer wood already on the aluminum strips. I have none.

You know me (or maybe you don't) I like to throw feathers into the fan. So here goes.
There was a study done by Fine Woodworking Magazine. The author used many systems from a tormek (which uses a leather strop wheel to finish) to fine water stones, diamonds, combinations of all that. Where they could they used a jig for just bench stones or the jig that was part of the system. The edges were photographed by a lab with high mag equipment and the edges were all tested on the same plank of wood for cutting / finish quality and edge wear.

The winner ? Norton water stones with a strop at the end. What was the best strop they found ?
= Hardrock maple. with diamond paste That is what that block of wood is in my photo of my strops. I no longer use any of these strops by the way.

The photo of the end of the plank ~ two inches thick is the quality of cut / finish . . . they / I am looking for. The first photo is of end grain (harder to plane and still get that kind of finish), the second photo is just to show the hand plane tool and the size of the plank = the edges have to hold up for long cuts like that ! ! !

The hard rock maple sounds really hard doesn't it ? That plank is bubbinga and is MUCH harder and more difficult to plane. What you are looking at is an ultimate success for me. Learning that took some time I can tell you ! The point is I would not hope for or imagine a sharper or more durable cutting edge. It just does not get any better than that for WORKING tool edges. Meaning : ease of cut, sharpness, durability.

Did I use the maple strop ? No. I finished and debured on the last stone recommended in the magazine article; a Norton 8,000 water stone. Now that is A2 steel so for your CPM 10V AIN'T GONNA DO IT !
Got to use diamonds, They do make super fine diamond stones on the order of 8,000. I use that on my
S110V.

You want a firmer wood strop use maple ( I flattened it with one of my hand planes).
So microscopically you can get some benefit from the maple strop. In practice I found no advantage.
I hate strops as a group period so I was happy to leave it on the shelf.

PS: the Norton stones aren't what they once were when made in the USA; made in Mexico now. Last reports I read is they are not as consistent grit size wise. Haven't used them my self. Of course Mexico can produce as good a quality of product as any other country if the workers are provided with what they need to do it. I have moved on to Shapton Pros for most of my higher end steel alloys and then diamond plates for the really super stuff. No diamond paste just 8,000 stones.

Smoother than sanded.jpg
IMG_1089.jpg



The Stropping Young Lads.jpg
IMG_0203.JPG
 
Personally I find compressed paper over a coarse stone or other hard, reduced footprint surface (my Washboard) is ideal. After that, poplar is as hard as I go unless I'm going to a slurry on a textured surface.

When the strop surface gets too hard or too smooth the abrasives either don't bite well, or if they do bite well can actually induce a burr instead of removing one. They will also begin to cut to a greater depth (visible in a more pronounced scratch pattern) than they might if used in a hard stone, where only 10-15% of the abrasive is proud of the surface.

For my woodworking tools depending on steel, the Norton 8k is a great stone, followed by just a few passes on CrO on compressed paper over a Washboard. I do not use leather strops for anything but straight razors.
 
Paper over washboard with diamond compound that you have should be generally good to go as you have several high carbide steel there, after DMT EEF.
 
Today I was at the crafts store and had a look at basswood . Very good stuff , super smooth and hard . I would say that basswood should be superior to balsa if(!) you use diamond spray. For my diamond pastes, I'd prefer balsa. If hardness and smoothness were the criterion, then natural whetstone would be the top choice, e.g. my natural CN green whetstone (20x5mm profile dimension) distributed by ANSELF, rated at 10000grit, which is similar to a polished marble stone finish.
Just saying, in conjunction with the PTS method, the green whetstone as holder had failed, and I don't see why the basswood as holder would be any different. No, for the PTS method I am telling ya that balsa as holder is still the optimal choice because it has more give than basswood but much less than a leather strop.
With a leather strop, over-stropping is possible (if you're unexperienced with hardcore stropping).
With a balsa strop, over-stropping is possible too (if you're unexperienced with balsa stropping).
With a balsa PTS strop, over-stropping is not possible because it is guided-rod stropping.
Instead of buying the 2€-basswood today, I acquired a RRP50US$-value China made BERNDES kitchen chef knife, today:p.
For our records I wouldn't mind opening a thread on that knife. It's basically an ordinary overpriced supermarket 'quality kitchen knife', imho nothing special. I got it for sharpening practice purposes.
I also bought IRONOXIDERED powder spec'd at 0.09micron. 100g pure powder for 3.55€, what a steal. I'll post more about this powder (=with oil = red stropping paste, extremely high concentrated) in my other thread np
 
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