Power Strop

OK blame this on Tod Evans

I posted this elsewhere, but is is SO good, I just had to share it again!!

Basically you get a round piece of fairly thick MDF, and attach a piece of leather too it, mount it on something that spins, and then you add oil and polishing rouge to the leather. Yep, that simple, but I like simple.........


Ready to cut out.


Cutting a rough circle with my jigsaw (it will be trued up on the lathe)


I also cut a piece of leather slightly larger than the piece of MDF, you can also see the mandrel I bout to chuck up in a drill or on the drill chuck on the lathe.


I needed to drill a hole 12.7 mm in diameter.


Drilled the hole and fit the mandrel


With the drill chuck on the headstock of the lathe, I tried to true things up, but, the mandrel was too flexible, and the whole disc wobbled badly.........plan B


I took out the mandrel, and mounted the disc on my 6" faceplate, this worked VERY well.


I was easily able to true up the edge and the face of the disc, but man that MDF is DUSTY to turn, notice the cyclone hose right there.....


I bought some glue that is designed for sticking leather to wood, it is a kind of contact cement.


I let the glue sit 10 minutes, like it says on the package, then I stuck it together, and pounded the heck out of it, then for good measure............


I clamped another piece of plywood on top of it and let it sit for 15 minutes or so.


Back on the the lathe, I trued up the edge again, cutting off a thin slice of the leather.


The minor spots of glue on the face just scraped off with the back of my razor knife.


Tod told me to now soak the leather in oil, so I did, he said any old oil would do, so I had some electric chainsaw chain oil sitting around, I figured that it would work well. I really soaked it and let it sit, then soaked it again. Then after 10 minutes or so, I wiped off the excess oil, and back on the lathe it went.


Here it is loaded with Rouge, Tod said it would make a paste, and it sure did.

So, how did it work?

Man alive did it work!! I cannot believe how well it works, I have a bunch of chisels, they are ones that I inherited or I won on auction,
that were in fairly rough shape, and needed a lot of work. I just ground them on the grinder, on the coarse wheel, and then went straitght to the Power Strop.

Most were sharp enough to shave the hair on my forearm in less than a minute, WOW!!!!


Bright, shinny, and SHARP!!

Can't thank Tod enough for suggesting this, boy will this be a time saver!


After sharpening 10 chisels, the Power Strop is still in great condition.
You have to be careful how you present the chisel to the power strop, but it did not take me long to figure that one out.

Man does this work!!
Cheers!

Hi Stu; I like your power strop, however since it will only spin one way it can't be used to strop double edged knives.
I made a knife sharpener - power strop from an old 2 brush floor polisher turned upside down.
These things can be picked up around here at garage sales for under $5.00. Take off the brushes, add the mdf circles with leather etc. An extra set of heads could have emery paper added for those really dull knives.

Actually, it can, that DVR has a reverse and the faceplate has a locking set screw on it, so I could certainly do it in reverse

Good idea with the floor polisher!

.......got any pics to share...?

Cheers!

mac, my wheel is mounted on a buffing machine leather on both sides.....works just fine...tod

It looks good Stu! I will have to think about making something similar . But, there are a lot of things ahead of it on my list, .

Something that may be of use with this:
http://www.finewoodnthings.com/prod01.htm

The lathe adapters are round aluminum widgets with headstock thread at one end and 5/16"-18 female thread at the other. Your "arbor" then simplifies to a 5/16" bolt, a nut, and two washers.

Looks like I need to add one of these to my shop projects folder.

perfect mack! spinnin` leather charged with rouge.....i have a 3" circle that`s about 1/16 thick i mount on a die grinder to hit the inside of "v"groove`s and vieners....works slicker`n a whistle.....tod

Looks good Mack. I still use my old (40 years old) floor polisher, so now you have me thinking of devising a tempory mount for it in order to accomodate a leather covered buffer.

Mack Cameron said:

Hi again Stu; some pics of floor polisher power strop.

Click to expand...

OK Mack, that is VERY cool, I'm going to have to watch the auctions for one of them!

VERY cool!

Mack Cameron said:

Hi again Stu; some pics of floor polisher power strop.

Click to expand...

Ok, that makes more sense: I was thinking of those big polishers with the 2' diameter wheels.

Mack Cameron said:

Hi again Stu; some pics of floor polisher power strop.

Click to expand...

Just saw this as i was browsing - what a beauty AND i know where i can get an old polisher for $3 or 4.

Good on yer Mack

Tod's idea is just fine. But as simple as it is, I do even simpler. I simply took three hunks of thick (sole) leather and cut them to sorta round shapes, poked a hole near the center and bolted them together. Long before I had any kind of real shop, I used an old corded drill in one of those gadgets that makes a drill into a bad excuse for a drill press. The unit could turn the drill horizontal. Since the leather is flexible, being perfectly round is not necessary. I did take a rasp and, with drill running, kinda rounded the ends. I didn' t oil or anything, just charged with white compound and hone away. Been using the same makeshift deal for 20 years. I have another, smaller one where I made the pieces closer to round. The center leather section is a bit larger than the outer two. This makes a convex edge. I have used this to hone the inside of curved carving chisles. Works fine.