I had a revelation!

Ed Nelson

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Charlotte, NC
Now that I've started my hand at carving, I decided it was time to get a strop. Yea, I know, should have done it a loooooong time ago! Well, I went to Woodcraft and, although I did pick up some green compound, the price they were asking for a piece of leather and wood was way more than I was willing to shell out! I ended up stopping by Tandy Leather and hit their scrap bin. $2 later and a piece of scrap maple and here's what I have.

PIC-0022.jpg


WOW, what a difference a strop makes!
 
Thanks for the link to the power strop - I'll need to make one - I even already have some leather on hand and a scrap of MDF the perfect size. I don't know if I have enough clamps though - it looks like Stu missed 4 or 5 clamping points when he made his. :rofl:
 
A couple years ago I read something about strops. So I just took an old belt, cut off a chunk and glued it to some wood (finished side glued to the wood).

Put some green compound on and I was amazed at what it did.

I've made several since then. I keep one in the shop for chisels and such.

I keep one in the kitchen and use it almost daily on my kitchen knives. A couple of strokes seems to keep them razor sharp for a several months.

Just seems like a nice satisfying way to put the final polish on a blade, or to keep it nice and honed.
 
I use a strop, but I must be cheap, lazy or both. I went to a craft outlet and bought a "sheet" of leather. Its about the same size as a piece of paper. I lay it on my glass plate and strop my tools with it like that...just like its a piece of sandpaper.

Incidentally, I use green rouge "as my rough polish", then use white rouge for my final pass. This is what we do at work when we polish the stainless steel. The green rough really takes out fine scratches and the white rouge...well there isn't much you can do with the scratches at that point, but start sanding from the beginning.
 
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