Strop?

[Guyon]

I use heavy canvas, with chromium oxide (green) or jeweler's rouge (white) and crystolon powder (grey) on mine.

I have been using it for sometime now, and prefer the canvas to leather.

Moose

Some of the old barber strops have both leather and canvas. See top left.

 

[zpstl321]

Looking at one of these pictures has me second guessing the "grit" of these compounds. Isn't green the finest so you would go black, white, and then green? Does anyone know what grit they are? I have white and green, but I'm liking the results so much I'm thinking about picking up a few more in different sizes.

I took my square of leather and stretched it on a old, short oar I used for rafting and stapled the edge. It works pretty good, so I'm thinking bout doing both sides of the other oar.

 

[knifehunt]

Looking at one of these pictures has me second guessing the "grit" of these compounds. Isn't green the finest so you would go black, white, and then green?

Yes. Black is course, white medium and green is fine. Some call white Light, and green High Gloss. I noticed the picture as well, and do not know why they would be numbered that way.

 

[CamH_16]

Looking at one of these pictures has me second guessing the "grit" of these compounds. Isn't green the finest so you would go black, white, and then green? Does anyone know what grit they are? I have white and green, but I'm liking the results so much I'm thinking about picking up a few more in different sizes.

I took my square of leather and stretched it on a old, short oar I used for rafting and stapled the edge. It works pretty good, so I'm thinking bout doing both sides of the other oar.

My guess would be that black is around 3000, white is around 4500 and green is 6000...

I like using polishing paste on my strops since it seems to do the job off all 3 compounds in one go.

 

[FreebornErik]

I'm not sure if these are the same as the polishes I used several lifetimes ago in the jewelry industry or not, but back then from coarsest to finest, we had:

Black or emery, this stuff worked on everything, but we almost never used it, cause it would cut through plating in a fraction of a heartbeat... not good, especially when someones prized piece was dropped off for a polish, and they didn't know it was plated. Most jewelers wouldn't have this in their shops for fear of accidentally having it loaded up on a wheel and destroying something.

Brown or tripoli was next, this worked on everything (except platinum and things with nickel including chrome), kind of all purpose, I used to buy it in 2 lb cakes. It really worked nice on bone, horn, and hard leather. I rarely worked in steel, usually sterling silver or gold, but this is usually what I started with (and frequently ended with).

Then came white, the next step up, and again pretty universal like the Tripoli, except only metals, no bone, horn, wood, etc.

Next was the green, which was again like the white only finer, again metal use only.

The last was red, which was finer yet, I never used it though, white and or green always got me to mirror shiny.

I'm not sure, but I think Tripoli, white and green would be the most useful for tool steel and stainless.

Store these in an air tight container (zip lock baggie is fine), the wax the abrasives are loaded in will dry out if you don't. It'll crumble when it gets too dry, and you won't be able to load it onto a wheel (or strop).

These are for polishing, I'm not sure how effective they'd be on the edges of our current wonder steels. I actually use the flexcut gold on my knife strop which is leather mounted to hardwood, it cuts a lot more steel than any of the jewelers rouges. It's almost funny how fast it'll "polish" my gold wedding band.

I didn't have the fine motor control to use a barbers strop, unless I pulled it really tight, I'd wreck the edge with it, so I gave that up.

If you really want scary sharp, I'd look into the diamond stropping pastes the straight razor folks use, not sure how practical they'd be for a field knife, sharp enough for a comfortable shave is a lot sharper than I ever take my knives (popping hair off your arm is a lot less sharp than a smooth comfortable shave). Of course that's apples 'n' oranges as the blade geometries are different.

Erik

 

[worldwood]

Great post Erik. I use some of the pastes on my strop. chromium oxide (1/2 micron) and the other with the alumina oxide (.3micron). Then the big piece on the back is bare leather. It works fantastic. i have yet to need to use a stone on either of my user knives. I strop them every night if they were used that day and the edge stays fantastic.

 

[Brew-Jitsu]

I just use some scrap leather and Flexcut Gold. It doesn't take much. I'm sure there are better compounds like white, black, and green but I'm satified with my results as long as I don't round out the edge dues to poor technique.

I ended up rounding the edges to a very sharp convex due to my technique. It wasn't what I was going for, but it worked out well.

 

[tradewater]

Black compound on chrome tanned leather produces an edge that's a cutter and holds up quite well. It seems to be a little toothier than green. Been using it for twenty years or better. The mistake most folks make is applying too much compound. Just lightly color some on like it's a crayon. Loading up a strip of denim or canvas with compound makes a good strop too and doesn't add much to your pack. Experiment and see what gives you the best results. I've gotten some pretty keen edges using cardboard.

 

[zpstl321]

That's pretty much what a strop does...It makes the edge convex, just like using stones does by hand.

That aint all bad though.