I have been doing a lot of research the past couple of days, (thankyou for being a great forum, by the way) and have learned a lot about sharpening. I am going to get some good bench stones and learn to sharpen free hand, but I ahve also seen the benefit of a leather strop. Where can I get one? I read somewhere about Handamerican? there site was not working for me tonight, maybe I will try tomorrow. Does anyone have recommendations regarding strops ?
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Where to buy a strop?
- Thread starter Durbin
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Yeah, I just got one from Handamerica. I got the one with the base and the magnetic backing on the leather. Purchased both the plain and red leather. Nice setup for stropping. You can also purchase leather cut to whatever size you need and make your own. I purchase some of that as well.
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I bought mine from HandAmerican. Great quality & customer service. Heres the link: www.handamerican.com/products.html
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+1 for handamerican great folks
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Have any old real leather belts laying around? Cut a section about a foot long and glue it to a pine board cut to the same width as the belt. Elmer's wood glue works great. Total cost about $2.50 if you have to buy the glue and a scrap of wood. Mine was pretty much free! And it works just as well as the expensive mail order ones. You can glue one side with the rough backside of the leather and the other side with the smooth face of the leather.
I have even used a section of newspaper for a strop.
The important part is the rouge. You may want the white bar of compound for buffing stainless steel. That's what I use most of the time now. Or you may want to invest in a couple grades of diamond dust. I tried that for a while but I'm just not that anal. It does work great with a leather stropping wheel on a bench grinder.
Which ever you choose you can be sure you are headed down the right path.
I have even used a section of newspaper for a strop.
The important part is the rouge. You may want the white bar of compound for buffing stainless steel. That's what I use most of the time now. Or you may want to invest in a couple grades of diamond dust. I tried that for a while but I'm just not that anal. It does work great with a leather stropping wheel on a bench grinder.
Which ever you choose you can be sure you are headed down the right path.
This thread caught my interest - especially frugalweaver's suggestion. I'd be extremely interested in clarification of a few points, if I could be so bold.
(a) Although I might place the 2 lengths on separate blocks of scrap wood cut to size, would you suggest using the same "grit" of white compound on both the rough and smooth sides of the leather belt? Having an IQ about room temperature on a winter's night, I got a bit lost there.
(b) I'm probably wrong, but the only white compound I could find in Oz appears to be in quite a solid state (it was in sticks). How is this applied to the leather on the strop? Is it just rubbed onto the leather, or onto the knife blade? Or do you use some paste-like formulation?
Any help would be very much appreciated.
Cheers
omniphile
(a) Although I might place the 2 lengths on separate blocks of scrap wood cut to size, would you suggest using the same "grit" of white compound on both the rough and smooth sides of the leather belt? Having an IQ about room temperature on a winter's night, I got a bit lost there.
(b) I'm probably wrong, but the only white compound I could find in Oz appears to be in quite a solid state (it was in sticks). How is this applied to the leather on the strop? Is it just rubbed onto the leather, or onto the knife blade? Or do you use some paste-like formulation?
Any help would be very much appreciated.
Cheers
omniphile
Cliff Stamp
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The rough side generally is used to hold more coarse grits. The buffing compounds are often found in bar form, you rub it onto the leather like a crayon and then smooth it out with a rag or similar until you get an even coating.
-Cliff
-Cliff
Well, McGoo, you've done it again. Thanks to everyone (especially Cliff and frugalweaver).
I had an old leather belt (35mm wide) and fortunately due to having an ample girth, plenty of length.
Cut some pieces of pine that were about 33 mm wide at 14 inch intervals, and glued the leather to the wood. Raced off to the hardware store and got some grey (coarser) and white (medium) compound. I cannot believe how much of a difference it makes on some knives.
It's as though the very old Gerber (BL identified it for me as a Folding Sportsman III) is now just like the factory edge it came it. I thought I was pretty competent putting an edge on it, but I have now realised how much I was fooling myself over the years.
I'm sure it's still a long way from the edges you guys can conjure up, but I am absolutely chuffed with the results on the homemade strop.
Thank you for all the patience and superb advice guys.
Cheers
omniphile
I had an old leather belt (35mm wide) and fortunately due to having an ample girth, plenty of length.
Cut some pieces of pine that were about 33 mm wide at 14 inch intervals, and glued the leather to the wood. Raced off to the hardware store and got some grey (coarser) and white (medium) compound. I cannot believe how much of a difference it makes on some knives.
It's as though the very old Gerber (BL identified it for me as a Folding Sportsman III) is now just like the factory edge it came it. I thought I was pretty competent putting an edge on it, but I have now realised how much I was fooling myself over the years.
I'm sure it's still a long way from the edges you guys can conjure up, but I am absolutely chuffed with the results on the homemade strop.
Thank you for all the patience and superb advice guys.
Cheers
omniphile
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2005
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- 112
You are very welcome and we are happy to help. Thanks Cliff, exactly what I would have said.omniphile said:
Congratulations on graduating to super sharpening! Keep learning and practicing, you are doing great!
Thank you for trying it for yourself instead of following the crowd.
I bought a Rick Butz strop from the Woodcraft store. I like it because of the angled side and the curved side which allow me to hone various gouges I use for carving as well as my knives. Butz is a well known wood carver so he designed his strop to accomodate carving tools as well as knives and other straight blade tools. I charge one of the sides with the green chrome oxide crayon-like compound and the other with the chalky flexcut gold. I'm very happy with this strop.
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- Jul 3, 2005
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- 112
I use a felt cloth wheel on a slow bench type grinder for all my carving tools. I buff them every few minutes or as soon as I feel a slight drag in the wood. I seldom have to sharpen any of them if I keep them buffed.
In my opinion buffing with a good medium compound is the same as sharpening, but on a microscopic scale. So, I think, you loose less metal over time, your tools last longer, you actually spend less time keeping them sharp and you get a consistantly cleaner cut.
In my opinion buffing with a good medium compound is the same as sharpening, but on a microscopic scale. So, I think, you loose less metal over time, your tools last longer, you actually spend less time keeping them sharp and you get a consistantly cleaner cut.
A used strop can be bought cheap [ten dollars maybe] at an antique store and the earlier mention of useing a newspaper really does work. Maybe the sharpest knife I ever held had been sharpened that way BUT it takes a while...maybe a long while.
The leather belt trick is excellant, cheap, easy and more than efficent.
The leather belt trick is excellant, cheap, easy and more than efficent.
HandAmerican has reopened its web store and has an interesting new take on the Scary Sharp system, which essentially uses sandpaper in place of leather for sharpening (of course, you can still use leather if you want to, as a finishing or maintenance step.) Having had a positive experience with using sandpaper to reprofile and sharpen my Sebenza, I think this setup would be ideal if you haven't already invested much in other hones.
So would any kind of leather belt work or do you need the belt to be a certain softness of leather? The reason I ask is I have an old weight lifting belt, but the leather is stiffer than the belt I use to hold up my pants. I know that part of stropping with leather is that the leather gives a bit, so don't know if the stiff weight lifting belt is too hard to give under the knife.
I'm another that has found Hand America to be a great resource. Good leather to make a strop from, or you can buy a nice one.
Besides, they have lots of good products you might need steels, sandpaper, poilishing powders...
Grapevine, you can use it. Try laying it on a hard surface and giving a knife a stroping and see what you think.
Besides, they have lots of good products you might need steels, sandpaper, poilishing powders...
Grapevine, you can use it. Try laying it on a hard surface and giving a knife a stroping and see what you think.
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What an awesome thread! thanks for all the info and for reminding me of some stuff I had forgotten about. Now I'm off to dig thru the closet for old belts!
BTW this is kind of a cheesy trick, but many times I've stropped a knife on the edge of it's leather sheath during a task. Sort of like frugalweaver said... a quick touch-up can easily straighten the edge back out and let you kind of skip a sharpening. Or at least extend the life of the edge between sharpenings. Butchers touch up with a steel frequently, seems to me the same idea works with a strop even if it's "field-expedient".
BTW this is kind of a cheesy trick, but many times I've stropped a knife on the edge of it's leather sheath during a task. Sort of like frugalweaver said... a quick touch-up can easily straighten the edge back out and let you kind of skip a sharpening. Or at least extend the life of the edge between sharpenings. Butchers touch up with a steel frequently, seems to me the same idea works with a strop even if it's "field-expedient".