chuck123wapati

traditionally they used horse hide i believe. yes just use the paper dry

Nope I don't strop my knives, none of them, hunting fishing butchering, leather or wood carving and i dont use a straight razor for shaving lol I use the 2000 grit for leather and my wood chisels and a butchers steel for butchering and the rest. i actually use a 2000 grit oiled belt on my sander for my finished edges on the knives i make. Here's my take for what its worth. Polishing compound that you use on a strop is for polishing, i use a lot of it in making knives so i am well aware of its use and also how long it takes to polish tempered steel. Stropping with it is like pissin into the wind IMO just to fine to do any real good because the steel is tempered so polishing is not easy and yet not hard enough like a straight razors steel to prevent rolling the edge, as well during stropping you can see the leather roll up from under the blade if you look closely that will make a good straight edge convex in short order as the leather pushes up around the edge. I use the 2000 grit it works well and much quicker to replace the edge that leather takes off, veg tan is hard on edges for sure, being glued on my pounding board it just takes a few strokes, wont round the edge and is handy right there. i have found there is a curve for sharpness that a cutting tool has to fit, to sharp for the job and it dulls quickly to dull and it doesn't cut, all cutting tools fit in that curve but axes don't fit the same place as leather tools or kitchen knives in that curve each needs it own edge, edge angle, edge grind etc.to meet its potential. As for the leather type if i was to make a strop it would be with the right stuff not whatever is laying around or you may be doing more harm than good IMO. Either way you decide to go what is important is that you learn the art of sharpening and learn your own tried and tested techniques because there have been pages and pages of sharpening opinions posted here as well as online. You know the old saying about opinions lol same with sharpening. All i know is what works for me. good luck and god bless.

I use a simple piece of 2000 grit sandpaper spray glued on my pounding stone to keep up the edge. No flex no mess and much easier and cheaper. To soft and the flex of the leather will round off your edge. Use the hardest leather you can find if you want to make one i hear horse hide fits the bill best.

That is amazing, portraits are hard especially when they are of people everyone knows.

excellent work !

air brush it.

i've done elk deer rabbit and such. Braintanned.

That is very nice! i love that clean straight design that matches the 1911 perfectly.

thank you thank you if i only had the dough. those are nice tools indeed.

i dont see why you cant use veg tan, neats foot oil will soften it and darken it. if you use neats foot apply it a little at a time so you dont use to much. Try it on a piece of scrap to see if it will work for you.

Friend I'm not going to play Fakebook you tell me first games with you. You simply wanted to know what i use in an effort to show me i don't know what is in what i use to make some point. I don't know what the point you wanted to make was or even care but I'm sure it was to prove my "misconceptions" wrong to some degree. The relevance of my life was equally simple to understand and you know that also, don't play dumb i know your not! I do know what i use and what's in it I don't need your help with that others may but I don't. You came on here telling everyone that there is a misconception about vegetable oils going rancid there is no misconception vegetable oils go rancid period end of story. I'm not going to use them on anything i make period end of story. yes you can make them work if......... blah blah blah I'm not into if.....when making something for other humans. You like it, you make it, you use it period end of story. That is how i learned what I like and I am sure that's how you will learn what you like. Good luck to you friend. We do agree that everyone should know what is in everything they use so we can leave it at that. BTW msds sheets contain info about the product created not only the products used in its creation, Clorox and ammonia don't mix for example and create something much different and deadly when mixed so no aggregation doesn't always work in creating an MSDS. msds for neats foot= https://www.springfieldleather.com/sds-sheets/Fiebings/Fiebings Pure Neatsfoot Oil.pdf d-limonene msds =https://www.bulkapothecary.com/content/SDS/D-Limonene SDS - BA19.pdf . I'll use neats foot thanks.

i use a mix of beeswax and boiled linseed oil much the same way, its an old go to for a variety of things from clothing to furniture. carnauba works great on my antler knife handles i have a can that is decades old.

welcome and good luck to you friend.

good luck down there friend stay safe. i was wondering how you were doing.

#98 i would use a tightly formed sheath with maybe a chape on the end of the sheath or just a copper rivet or two to prevent any push through at the welt.

OK let me answer in a different way. Friend as a physical plant manager in a prison i had an msds book set that had literally over a thousand different products that i was personally responsible for keeping up and knowing about. Yes i do know what i stick my hands in, breath and or use on my tools and products. It was my life as well as the lives of about 250 employees, 30 of which were under my direct supervision and 896 inmates. MSDS are not a new concept to me by any means. But you missed the point i made or ignored it ,not all leathers necessarily take the same conditioning! BTW do you have an MSDS for your product?

It depends friend on what i intend to use the leather for. My boots for example don't get the same treatment as my wallet. Get what I'm saying? Not all leather will require the same conditioners. But nothing i use will have vegetable oils in it as the main ingredient and that is because of my personal experience and knowledge as i have written above. I see no reason to have to add a bunch of chemicals to an iffy ingredient, the American way founded on trying to sell waste materials, just to get it to work when there are tried and proven products out there that need nothing additional, sure you can make veg oil work and it may work very well if you add enough other stuff to make it stable but I'm not going to try it on products i make and intend to last for the lifetime of the person I just cant afford to sorry. I do use neat's-foot on most of my work as the first product for conditioning to start the process of moisturizing or softening the leather its been used for centuries and i have used it for decades and i know it works. I do make one hell of a castile soap for the family however if that helps you to understand I'm not anti veg oil LOL. To everyone didn't mean to sound snarky at all or argumentative i apologize to anyone i have offended.

i had to look it up as i know nothing about recorders i found this info. "Almost every maker recommends sweet almond oil with vitamin e oil added to it. The vitamin e oil keeps the almond oil from going rancid." You mean you wouldn't use leather water proofing for a recorder ? Hmmm maybe just maybe thre isn't one answer!

i think i'm going to have to try some out.

it will be ready on the first full moon of the second month of the third year when the blue wooly tater bug flies south. i apply it with a cold beer! but some good home made Irish whiskey will work also.

I know you make a conditioner let me know how it works in say twenty years the first 7000 years of leather history doesn't show much use of vegetable oils mixes of any kind that i know of and i'm not sold.

just from personal experience, We had a very stringent chemical program at the prison i used to work in. Oils were one of them and aerosols oil products a strict nono. So in an effort to keep the equipment in the kitchens lubed up the inmates would use vegetable cooking oils including olive among others. I can tell you in a few months vegetable oils dry and turn to a hard rubbery glue like substance that requires solvents to remove, it didn't smell to bad so not really rancid but there may be other traits not so good for leather that we need to think about also. I 'm not putting veg oils of any kind on my leather, I've spent far to many hours cleaning it off of stuff. I prefer time tested products and i have tested them for most of my 62 years i have leather products that are 40 years old. i cant see much in history books about using the vegetable oils, I'm sure they did at some point but why they aren't the goto from days gone by has to cause some question about their use in leather work.

Thank you !!

its takes longer than 24 hrs just put some steel wool in a jar cover it with vinegar, put the lid on loose and forget about it for at least a few days it will get stronger the more iron that is dissolved. I have a jar that is over a year old. This stuff has been made for centuries its not rocket science. don't overthink it no need.

i do too i also use natural sponge sometimes for a mottled effect.