Non-animal based knife strop?

rogerxd45

rogerxd45

Joined
Mar 12, 2009
Messages
271
ok so i know this is a kind of odd question but is there a type of fabric that can be used as a knife strop that isnt made of leather or any other material that comes from an animal.

I have a friend that is vegan and i have got her addicted to knives recently. Well she wants me to teach her to properly use a strop to get and keep the hair popping edge i have on my knives. She has learned pretty fast how to sharpen a knife on stones and is improving all the time and i feel she has developed her sharpening skills enough to benefit from using a strop. the problem is she doesn't want to use leather so im trying to find something she can use that will do a good job.
I have tried to teach her a little by watching me on my leather one but stropping is a skill that requires hands on practice to learn. so i figured it would probably be better to stop trying to teach her on a leather strop since the technique might be different on a different material plus it didnt feel right to use leather to teach her since i know vegan thing is something she is passionate about

what properties should i look for in a strop material?
should it have a high thread count
should it be thick or thin
does the orientation of the thread pattern matter
should it be attached to a rigid backing (like how i glue my leather to a piece of wood)

im sure im missing lots of questions but thats all i can think of right now
thank you for all your help
 
Use a strip of denim from some old jeans glued to a board just like the leather would be.
You can also do a search for "washboard" on the forum. I forget his name but a fellow forumite makes them and they get knives crazy sharp.
 
Ive seen people use balsa wood with compound smeared on it..They say it works good.
 
Neko2 said:
Use a strip of denim from some old jeans glued to a board just like the leather would be.
You can also do a search for "washboard" on the forum. I forget his name but a fellow forumite makes them and they get knives crazy sharp.
Click to expand...

His name is Heavy Handed - http://www.washboardsharpening.com/

So hard to not crack a joke about vegans, can they eat animal crackers.. :D
 
Besides leather I use a piece of old canvas covered rubber firehose piece taken from a firehose cabinet whose hose was replaced at a building where I work. I just cut a piece about 12 inches long and rubbed green chrome paste on it and it works great. The hose material lays flat and has just enough give that you can split it in half lengthwise along the seam and make two strops out of any piece. The fire hoses in all building hose cabinets need replacement every so many years so ask any fire protection or fire sprinkler contractor in your town if they have any replacements in the works and I am sure you can get a piece. The hoses also make great machete sheaths.
 
A plain cardboard box works very well.
There are linen strops meant to be used with cutting compounds.
 
While I am by no means a great sharpener I have had pretty decent results using balsa. It's dirt cheap so it's worth trying.
 
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I also use balsa - with my wicked edge. I use 3.5 micron diamond paste on them. Works great.
 
Heavy Hands wash board is not made of leather. You can use hardwood with slurry applied. Many more. DM
 
Kentucky said:
Ive seen people use balsa wood with compound smeared on it..They say it works good.
Click to expand...

This is true.

I have a leather strop, and often use compound rubbed on a balsa stick.

Honestly, I have a few paint sticks that work just fine for this. Free to, so no commitment.
 
I'll go you one better. She's a vegan - if you want to really impress/intrigue her and score some points, go harvest some Birch Bracket mushroom and use that. It's also known as "Razor Strop" mushroom. The flesh of the mushroom makes an excellent strop.
 
I've used simple denim-on-paint-stick strops, with a variety of compounds, for some time now and they give me better results than the traditional leather on wood variety: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...f-Forgiveness-How-I-Came-to-Love-Denim-Strops

Since I put up that thread I have a new favorite all round compound---Ryobi white "H", which I discovered courtesy of David/Obsessed with Edges: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1201347-Ryobi-Compounds-Attempting-a-List Should still be available on the big auction site.

I've also come to prefer a single layer of denim over a double layer. But any way you slice it, I guess they're all vegan friendly. ;)

Andrew
 
Denim or linen, single layer, on a firm/hard backing like wood. My BEST and most-used strop is also the least complicated or expensive I could hope for: a piece of my old jeans stuck to a Home Depot paint-stirring stick; use double-sided tape (not the foam-backed stuff), contact cement or a spray adhesive to attach the fabric to the wood. Aluminum oxide compounds work very well, in 'white rouge' as Andrew mentioned above, or I've also liked the #2 compound from Sears.

Diamond compounds work very well used on wood, like balsa, basswood, mdf or any other wood with smooth & tight grain.

Green compound seems to work very well when used on wood, or plain paper on a hard backing (also very well on leather, but never mind, in the context of this thread... ;)).


David
 
Another vote for balsa, it can be cut to shape easily, sanded if needed when loaded or nicked, sucks any kind of compound easily with a spritz of wd40 and it is dirt cheap.
That being said i still have denim strops and use cardboard aswell but leather never seemed to great in my eyes so your friend wont be missing much imho.
 
Wrap a sheet or two of regular copy or writing paper around the coarse side of a combination stone or other dry stone. When it loads up, recycle it. Keep in mind (or don't tell your friend), many, many compounds use vegetable or animal stearine, or blends thereof and is likely impossible to differentiate - the MSDS if available will simply list "stearine" which is basically a form of tallow.

Using the coarse side allows the paper to sink in around the high points and manages less rebound - less convexing of the edge. It also shrinks the footprint, making the compound work more aggressively for a larger range of repair and toothiness. The Washboard is an upscale use of this principle. For a smoother finish, use a few more sheets of paper and less force, or add a drop of mineral oil to the sheet to give the compound some mobility.

PS, the compound I formulated for the WB uses zero animal ingredients :D

I have also used denim, cork, balsa, etc etc and they all work and impart their own character to the edge in combination with whatever compound you prefer to use, I prefer paper by far for stropping with compound. The use of stearine as a binder might be a larger sticking point if your friend won't even use leather - basically stropping on abrasive suspended in highly refined animal fat. There are some forms that are 100% vegetable based. The manufacturer might be able to clear this up, I'd be interested to hear if you should track it down for a particular brand.

Martin

Edit to add:
My compound actually has a small amount of beeswax...not sure if that counts.
 
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Another little trick I learned from the staging razor guys is a peice of hard felt glued to a board. It can be used with diamond or CrOx sprays. I still like my leather though. :)
 
Most sites that sell high-end sharpening equipment carry strops layered with balsa wood. Recently strops have been appearing with a layer of a high tech micro-fiber. Both have received good reviews. I have no experience with either. I am currently using kangaroo leather mounted on an aluminum plate for all compounds 1 micron and smaller. Above 1 micron I use the rough side of tooling leather mounted on hardwood. Balsa and microfiber should compare to kangaroo. Canvas, denim and other coarser textiles should compare to tooling leather.
 
BrownDog52469 said:
Most sites that sell high-end sharpening equipment carry strops layered with balsa wood. Recently strops have been appearing with a layer of a high tech micro-fiber. Both have received good reviews. I have no experience with either. I am currently using kangaroo leather mounted on an aluminum plate for all compounds 1 micron and smaller. Above 1 micron I use the rough side of tooling leather mounted on hardwood. Balsa and microfiber should compare to kangaroo. Canvas, denim and other coarser textiles should compare to tooling leather.
Click to expand...

I moved away from tooling leather, in favor of denim and linen. The added thickness of leather lends a little too much softness/give, as compared to a single layer of fabric over a hard backing, which performs much more aggressively with a given compound, leaving edges much crisper. In terms of ability to embed & hold compound though, I could see they'd all be pretty comparable.

I do still use leather at times, when it's softer touch proves advantageous in removing very fine burrs on softer steels.


David
 
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