My First ever hand made strop

Nice job. Thanks for sharing! Now all you need is some green Veritas honing compound at 0.5 microns and you are set ;)
 
TripleT said:
Nice job. Thanks for sharing! Now all you need is some green Veritas honing compound at 0.5 microns and you are set ;)
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Lol I've heard of stroping and I like his strop, all I've ever used is the Black Compound. You have completely fuzzeled my mind :) HUH lol
 
It depends on the maker, but green is usually indicative of a finer average particle size in the compound than the black varieties.
 
TripleT said:
It depends on the maker, but green is usually indicative of a finer average particle size in the compound than the black varieties.
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What's the honing compound is that different than the crayon thingy I'm using
 
Good looking strop!

I use Black and white compound, though mostly black. I also have green compound, just never used it. Stropman is my go to dealer for compound.
 
Looks good to me, but I do have a question for the guys that have "store bought" strops. Do those have the smooth side of the leather up? I've always put the smooth up, but wondered if it made any difference.
 
My strop is a JRE belt strop currently it has the smooth side with black compound and the fleshy side with nothing but the grain from the leather! I usually used the black side then finish on the flesh side!
 
The one I've got from stropman had three sides, rough side up and one side, smooth side up.
 
Big strops work great, Stropzilla, Rough side up but the flesh side is split to eliminate all the fuzz and glued to a strip of oak from home depot.

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Skystorm said:
Big strops work great, Stropzilla, Rough side up but the flesh side is split to eliminate all the fuzz and glued to a strip of oak from home depot.
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OMG! Stropzilla is awesome. I would love to find a 12" x 4" strop. I think I am going to have to get busy and make one.

In my limited experience, I have found the cheap Flexcut Gold compound to be awesome. I have also used the black and white Stropman compounds and I very happy with them.

Volfather, your strop looks great too.
 
What's the honing compound is that different than the crayon thingy I'm using
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As I understand it, the crayon style compounds (including the green one I mentioned) are different formulas of chromium or aluminum oxide. So the short answer is: yes. The caveat here is that color and application (crayon vs. liquid vs. spray vs. other) can vary. What matters most is particle size and grit equivalency which most influences the action of the substance on the stropped blade.

Example: many black compounds are between 1 and 2 microns.

Many green compounds average between 0.5 and 1 micron.

I can't speak for what you are using, but a 2 micron formula will have grit equivalency between 10,000 - 15,000 whereas a 0.5 micron formula will have grit equivalency up to 60,000.

Fiddleback Forge edges straight from the shop seem to be somewhere around 600 - 1000 grit but the equivalency between belts, stones, and other tools can get mixed up. Some companies use grit numbers without directly referencing the particle size of the abrasive media they are using.

Quick guide:

http://www.gessweincanada.com/category-s/11328.htm
 
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Flexcut gold is pretty good stuff. As an aside, you can also use balsa wood as a pretty good substrate and load it up with compound. Here's my drawer strop that I keep in the pocket knife junk drawer.

As you can see, it's just a 1/4 inch piece of balsa from Michaels glued to a piece of 1/4 inch wood from Lowes and trimmed down from there. You could skip the whole glue it to another piece of wood, but I had it and was glueing some other stuff up anyway. (Loaded with Flexcut gold)

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I've also used cardboard (both corrugated and flat) loaded with some compound and had good results. The compound has the abrasive, the leather, balsa, or whatever, just holds the abrasive and provides the appropriate amount of 'give.'
 
A duck decoy carver gave me this when he retired. I dont really follow the instructions to strop but its the compound i use and the way i load the strop
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basically all the compounds are jewelers rouge in some shape for or fashion. Some have stronger grit some have less. I have a strop with the smooth side up and the compound I use on it is "brasso". This particular strop (usable leather) is 14 inches by 3 inches.
 
Volfather said:
basically all the compounds are jewelers rouge in some shape for or fashion. Some have stronger grit some have less. I have a strop with the smooth side up and the compound I use on it is "brasso". This particular strop (usable leather) is 14 inches by 3 inches.
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Very nice! Thank for the info!! :)
 
By far the leather is the most expensive part. The sheet i used for this stop was 10 x 15 inches. About $30 for it. The biggest part for me is i wanted a strop heavy enough to lay down to get both hands on the blade. and none on the handle so i can control the edge more like Mr. Kramer does his stropping. That video of him using the strop was completely different from anything I've ever seen.
 
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