Strop

Cut a peice of wood down to size. Sand it flat. Put whatever material you want on it, leather, denim, bare wood (basswood, balsa etc).

Apply diamond paste or spray. Done.

What types of steel are you going to be sharpening? Cause you could just buy some random strop with green compound already applied but for the higher end steels 60+hrc and high Vanadium steels Id recommend a bare strop and add your own diamond or cbn compounds which are very cheap these days.
 
I take 2 five gallon paint sticks and contact cement them together. They are too long for me. I usually cut 4-5 inches off. Round the corners with a sander. Stain if that turns you on.
Contact cement your leather on the paddle. Get green chromium oxide from Lows or wherever.
HEAT BOTH THE COMPOUND AND THE LEATHER WITH YOUR WIFE'S HAIR DRYER. Apply compound liberally while both are hot.
Strop to your hearts content.
 
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I actually just recently ordered the 4 piece 11" strop kit from Chef Knives to go. I was looking at a bunch of strops trying to figure out what I wanted to do and the kit seemed like a good idea for my intended usage. They give you a piece of wood, a piece of leather, a metal plate to attach the wood or leather and some 1 micron diamond paste. Most of my knives are S110 or S90 steel and diamond paste seemed like the best choice for me. And since the leather and wood have magnets to attach to the metal base, I can always add another wood or leather piece if I want to use a different compound at a later time. I'm by no means a strop expert but it seemed like a good starting point for me. From what I've read it seems like there are a ton of "ideal" solutions for stropping so expect a bunch of different suggestions. This is where I ended up after about a week of indecision. I will say that I'm glad that I started to strop my knives. It definitely improved my edges. I probably could have easily made the same thing I bought but it was worth it for me to just buy since my time to source materials and spend the time cutting everything to size is more valuable than what I paid for the kit. Good luck with whatever you decide on, I wish I wouldn't have waited so long to start stropping my knives since I've seen a noticeable improvement in sharpness.
 
If using leather, I would also advise to use a flat sanding block and sandpaper to also flatten the leather itself after it is glued to the wood.
 
I usually use plain paper because it's usually handy and is lying around. Just recently got tired of doing compound on paper so I used a piece of balsa and I have flexcut gold on one side and black compound on the other.

Experiment to see what you like, compound added to pretty much anything will work. Or stropping on other materials with no compound will work too, I've been known to use cardboard when. I'm cutting a lot of it up. It works but not as well as other materials.
 
For years I used an Illinois strop from Sharpening Supplies charged with diamond paste. Later I purchased an inexpensive 1x30 grinder, some AO belts and a leather belt charged with white rouge. It was much faster, but needed a very light touch. I now use a 2x72 for sharpening and stropping, but still hold the small 1x30 with AO belt and leather strop belt as a very easy way to get a great edge.Sharpening Service 005.jpg
 
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