About to make a strop

[peterbennett9]

Im about to endeavour to make a strop for my new mora, never made one before, so i thought before i did id see if anyone had any tips? to stop me making any school boy errors!

Also i know Autosol is a good compound but halfords also sells their own brand of stuff found here:

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/..._productId_714317_langId_-1_categoryId_228374

would this work just as well? its cheaper

Peter

 

[sasquatch]

Glue the leather rough side up, smooth side to the wood. Not tryed Halford's own compound but I'm sure you'll still get great results. Strops are great, they make all the difference. I spent a couple hours honing and stropping 5 straight razors last night. Perfect end result. Have fun...

 

[forestwalker]

It is my understanding that most polishing pastes will work more or less well. Autosol is easilly available to me, so that is what I use on all my strops.

I have three strops.

1. A peice of an old belt, with a loop in one end for hanging over something and a handle in the other for pulling on. With this setup you get a slight bend to the strop no matter what you do, which means that the edge wil be just a wee bit rounded. This could be an advantage for some applications, such as a general use knife

2. A piece of relatively thin leather glued flesh side up on a piece of plywood. Flatter than the first, but still micro-rounding the edge slightly.

3. A piece of pine, planed flat and with Autosol on it. Mirror edge, mirror edge on the blade, who is the flattest of them all?

The third one also have a rounded edge, where I can strop the inside of spoon knives and such tools.

Well, actually I have four, the fourth one being a commercial one I found in a second hand shop, with leather one one side and balsa wood on the other. If I ever get around to using a straight razor...

 

[peterbennett9]

Iv actually just bought a spoon knife, are those things a bugger to strop? its a mora 162

 

[forestwalker]

Not really, but yoiu need to get used to play with the shape of the blade
Robin Wood has some info on it

 

[peterbennett9]

how wide should my strop be? all of my knives are scandi and flat grind so maybe i should use something firmer than leather??

 

[forestwalker]

how wide should my strop be? all of my knives are scandi and flat grind so maybe i should use something firmer than leather??

In your case I'd glue the leather to a piece of plywood. Mine is about 6 cm wide and 20 cm long, there is then a handle on the end of the ply stick.

 

[Kerne]

I made a couple a while back. I used oak offcuts and contact adhesive to stick a strip of leather to each of them. Still going after several years...

They are about 8" long by 1.75" wide (the leather bit, that is).

 

[g4ghb]

swmbo (reading this thread title over my shoulder) suggests annoying your daughter - seems to quickly create a strop in our house

 

[g4ghb]

on a serious note though I have used tcut, autosol and various polishing compounds and they all do the job (as does 'naked' leather) I tend to make 2 at a time, one soothe side down that I use autosol on and the other I use to finish with the smooth side up

horses for courses I guess - try it and see how it works for you!