Made my first strop. Which compound?

ctucker90 · Jul 31, 2016

I spent the weekend making my first knife strop. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I have a couple questions though. What compound would you recommend if you could only have 2? (I only have two sides to the strop). From the research I've done I'm leaning towards diamond spray 1 micron and .5 micron from Hand American. I also made a matching travel size strop to carry with me to work and such. Do I need to use the same compound on both strops for consistency or can I use the diamond spray on one and chromium oxide for example on the travel one?

The strop is 10 X 3 X 3/4 inches and materials I used were 8 ounce vegetable tanned steer hide and walnut wood. I added a brass tube for a leather lanyard tube. Let me know what you guys think. Thanks for the help!

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Acadian · Jul 31, 2016

wow that looks nice. Great job!

linuxology · Jul 31, 2016

Go with your gut instinct. Diamond would work. Bravo and well done!

blanex1 · Jul 31, 2016

dam nice work on that strop,i have been using the plane green compound made by enkay products USA.seems to remove steel real fast!its good to try other products though!i was going to buy some hand american .5 spray but i never got around to it,from what i have heard/read about the stuff,most people really love it,but i wouldn't mix!keep one strop for the diamond P.and the other strop only for chromium oxide C.also try stropping on balsa wood with your H A.diamond spray!as i have been using DMT D paste on some balsa and i get a real flat bevel stropping on it,there's no give like you get with leather! try it.:thumbup:

Rey HRH · Jul 31, 2016

that certainly looks nice. I kept mine bare. And from others here, I heard that diamond works better on a hard substrate not leather. I took their advice.

James w · Jul 31, 2016

What kinda wood did you use? How did you glue the leather to the wood and what kind of adhesive did u use?

Megabassx7 · Jul 31, 2016

A lot of people like bark river compound. I have good results with dico green silver and black. Cbn and diamond paste is great too. Just depends what you want in final results

Bigfattyt · Jul 31, 2016

I've used green aluminum oxide for years. I keep waiting for my stick to run out so I can justify buying more.

ctucker90 · Aug 1, 2016

Thanks for all the positive comments. I've been a blade forums member for a couple years now, but this is my first post.

James w said:
What kinda wood did you use? How did you glue the leather to the wood and what kind of adhesive did u use?

I used walnut wood and I glued the leather with Titebond III wood glue (stuff is amazing). I used about 5 or 6 clamps and the thing looked crazy, but it came out great and solid as a rock!