How To Make A Strop For Knives

[Art]

Roll up to top of topic for picture.

This is a microfine compound I get from toolsforwoodworking.com, works for me, bought two (just because of shipping) and have never used the second one.

[jmkjmk2]

Looks cool. Thanks for sharing!

[cdf]

A trick i just heard about , rub mechanics hand cleaning compound into the leather , It contains mild abrasives , penetrates the leather well , even tho it discolours it some . On hanging strops , the back was often corse linen dressed with chalk , old canvas hose is also good .

A lot of woodworkers are going with diamond pastes on MDF offcuts - the MDF is stable( as long as it doesn't get wet ) - you can have any size hone/strop you want .

Chris

[St8LineGunsmith]

other types of material that is good for stropping is dry wall gypsum board

i also use a flat piece of MDF and use a piece of 1200 grit wet sanding paper

and use 3M 77 spray adhesive to bond the sand paper to the MDF board

i use a regular piece of card stock on the other side of the MDF and use

the spray adhesive to bond the card stock to the mdf board

then I just rub jewelers rouge on to the card stock.

you don't have to prep the dry wall board just rub on some jewelers rouge

as others have already mentioned a piece of cerial box with jewelers rouge

rubbed on it on top of your stamping stone will polish up any edge very nicely.

[Hennessy]

an old german saddlemaker back in australia showed me his strop makin.he found a metal shop n got a cup of fine metal grindings from under th bench grinder oil'd down a glued piece of chap on 2x4,applied th shavings n worked back n forth with a flat knife a lil oil a lil strop'n over n over until he had a good coating.on other side a ruff out piece of chap to clean strop works great too.

[Sporq]

I was about to make a new post, but I figured here was as good as anywhere.. I just made a paste compound out of the green buffing bar stuff from sears. Heated it on medium heat in a double boiler setup until it melted, then mixed it with around 6 tablespoons of olive oil (only because that's what I had convenient, and it was an experiment)

at first, I tried rubbing the compound on while still warm, and it worked ok, but didn't seem to be getting enough of the actual green rouge onto the leather, so I randomly remembered about how you can boil leather in wax to impregnate it with the stuff, and after figuring the bar was some sort of waxy compound, proceeded to just take a piece of 3 or 4oz scrap cowhide and soak it in the heated mixture. after about a minute or two, I pulled it out, and there was a fair amount of excess on it that I rubbed off with a paper towel. What was left was what I think is a fairly good surface for stropping and polishing. I tried polishing a few stone marks out of a tandy tool that I had ground the texture out of for a cheap crowner, and it polished it to a near mirror finish. I would call that a success in my book. Might try mixing it with bee's wax instead of oil, or switching oil types.

Anyone have any suggestions for improvement? After pouring the mixture into a bottle, it cooled off and turned into almost a saddle soap consistency. I'm wondering if I can just rub that into something, or even rub it on and heat with a hair dryer to get it to soak in more.

[packersfan117]

IIRC , lots of old skool razor strops were grain leather on one side and a very dense felt on the other . What was the felt used for ?

I'm a big fan of stropping , and have tried a variety of abrassives , and a couple of metal polishes - haven't settled on anything yet . Anybody tried any of the new diamond pastes ?

Chris

I use straight razors, and a couple of my strops have canvas or linen secondary strops. You can use them bare, as it's a little faster a strop than the leather, but I prefer to put micron diamond spray on it to make it even faster before taking it to the hide for the final stropping.

[St8LineGunsmith]

I would imagine horse would make good strop material

I usually just grab up a thick stiff piece of veg tan leather out of the scrap box at my local tandy store then rub jewlers rouge all over it , serves its purpose well. I find that making a nice strop usually gets worn and cut so I dont put too much energy in making a strop strap.

[Matchlock]

I quit using horse hide altogether. A few years ago I made a holster from a piece I had here. It was excellent leather, great strength, and was tough as nails but every time I walked in the yard I had this strange magnetic pulling feeling as I was being dragged toward the hay barn.

Bud

Art,

Nice one....THANK YOU for a great tutorial. I have never tried horse hide. I'll have to give it a try.

Edited September 7, 2013 by Matchlock

[BDAZ]

I make strops from Home Depot paint stirrers, both the large and the small. I glue a piece of veg tan on either side then a light sanding on the belt sander and green on one side and white on the other. The drill a hole to hang it and I'm done. If the leather gets heavly beat up or soiled I sand off the top layer and re-apply rouge and back in business.

Minutes of work involved and the price of scrap leather and paint paddles (free) .

Cya!

Bob