Strop

H

Hard H2O

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Aug 10, 2007
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From this and another forum I have been trying to learn about sharpening.

I bought a Gatco and added an extra fine hone and a finishing hone. I was getting nice edges.

Well I went to Sears and bought some white and some red polishing compound. Cost under $5. I then went to a new Tandy leather store in my area. They had three boxes of scrap leather that they sell by the pound. I pick out some nice hunks and aske how much. They sold me some nice pieces for $2 and they even had on little stuffed animal for each of my two kids I had in tow.

I went home go the kids to bed. I cut the leather to shape, loaded up a hunk with the white and another with the red. then paying attention to angles and such I commenced stropping first with the wite and then with the red.

What a difference it makes in the edge. Now I just have to kill a deer and put those edges to work.

Thanks for all the helpful discussion
 
You are waiting for deer season, though, right? I'd hate to think your knife got so sharp it drove you to a life of crime.
 
Nope, no poaching going on here. I might need to thaw out some venison steaks and start hacking to try to curb my blood lust.
 
Cool. I built a bench strop with one of those cheap tool belts from Harbor Freight (not the holey section of course), some scrap poplar, and part of a mousepad to keep it from scooting around. Strops really do work remarkably well for turning a hair-grabbing edge into a hair popper.


 
The stuff I am using is in stick form like that green but it is Sears white and red.
 
I "crayoned" it on. See the beveled edge on the stick of compound? That's from being worn away. The green stuff I got is substantially softer and more grease-like than the white compound I had used before.

Green seems to be harder to find in stores. I got mine at the local Rockler woodworking shop.
 
What is the diference in between the green, red, and white?

I think the red is finer than the white and seems to give a finer polish.
 
According to Widget Supply:

Red rouge for For Buffing Gold, Platinum, Sterling Silver, and More. White rouge for For Cut and Shiny Luster on Steel, Aluminum, and Chrome. ... Green for high polish on all metals. (sic)
Click to expand...
 
DrThunder88 said:
Green seems to be harder to find in stores. I got mine at the local Rockler woodworking shop.
Click to expand...

I bought a tube of it 5 or so years back at either Lowes or Home Depot. Last time I was in Lowes I noticed they had a decent (for a general hardware store) selection of various buffing wheels and compounds.
 
The red I'm unsure of but my wife worked at a jewelry supply store - the on-site jewelers used it all the time.

Black is the most coarse of these three.
Green is finer.
White is generally ultra-fine. Save that for your last step if you think you need it.

I stopped using white. I go from 2000 wet/dry or the white Shaprmaker stones to green on the smooth side of my strop (9oz shoulder glued to maple board). That's it.
 
StretchNM said:
The red I'm unsure of but my wife worked at a jewelry supply store - the on-site jewelers used it all the time.

Black is the most coarse of these three.
Green is finer.
White is generally ultra-fine. Save that for your last step if you think you need it.

I stopped using white. I go from 2000 wet/dry or the white Shaprmaker stones to green on the smooth side of my strop (9oz shoulder glued to maple board). That's it.
Click to expand...

I am just using the leather on the top of my work bench. I will probably mount it to blocks sometime but it seems to work as is.

I have been using the suede side for the white and the smooth side for the red.
 
Well Hard Water,
The bench should work just fine. It's the same thing as mounting it, except it aint mounted :D . As long as the edges stay nice and flat...and tight to the benchtop. If they curl a little, you can use some 3M or similar spray adhesive.

If I could make an unsolicited recommendation: Change to red for the rough side and white for smooth. The white, without a doubt, is a finer compound and it just seems logical to me that you would do your final stropping on the smooth side with the finest grit.
 
Oh there's one more benefit to mounting a strop to a board: you can hold the board in your left hand, palm up, and adjust it while stropping....making the angle fit and changing it mid-strop as you see fit. It takes a little practice like anything does, but it works pretty good for me.
 
I have a portable set of strops that I made for camp made from scrap leather, and the little paint stirring sticks that most paint stores will give you for free. :D

They work as well as the expensive bench strops that I made from premium leather glued to custom cut plexiglass.:o

BTW, I use 6 micron, 2.5 micron, and 1.8 micron silicon carbide, and .5 micron Chromium Oxide.

Ben
 
M. McCord said:
I bought a tube of it 5 or so years back at either Lowes or Home Depot. Last time I was in Lowes I noticed they had a decent (for a general hardware store) selection of various buffing wheels and compounds.
Click to expand...

I had a similar epiphany with metal-cutting bandsaw blades at Home Depot. My local Performance Tool--where tools is all they sell and they have a lot of tools--didn't have the selection of blades HD did. Green compound is still hard to come by, as near as I can tell. Weird.

It seems like there are a number of different types of white compound. Some have cutting action; some don't. Any idea what is better for stopping?
 
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