Thread: Making a paddle strop

Flickr: ben325e's Photostream

This ( CLICK HERE ---> Flickr: ben325e's Photostream ) is a gallery of my paddle strop system. I used some 3" wide leather that I cut from a cheap tool belt I bought at Harbour freight to test with, and now I have several different "inserts".

I have the following inserts:

3 x Harbour Freight toolbelt leather (actually pretty hard stuff, and works great.)
1 x Glass glued to wood insert - used for lapping films and the like.
1 x Hand American horse butt leather

If I ever need a new strop, I just make a new insert.

I've always had a problem with the four sided strops (and the two sided strops, for that matter), because whenever you are using one side, the other is picking up little pieces of dirt and other junk.

You'll see in some of my pictures that the chromium oxide is very sparingly applied. I use this particular strop on my kitchen knives, and it works great. It's actually less effective when I have the whole strop green from the chromium oxide.

Ben

That is rather clever Ben.
Nice design

Added pix to my previous post

Contact cement works well, I've used it a few times for sticking leather to wood, no problems yet.

I also like the harder feel when using paddle strops, but have been throwing around the idea of making the wood surface just slightly concaved to mimic the slight sag in a hanging strop, rather than padding the back to give the same effect. One if these days I'll give it a shot.

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

Contact cement works well, I've used it a few times for sticking leather to wood, no problems yet.

I also like the harder feel when using paddle strops, but have been throwing around the idea of making the wood surface just slightly concaved to mimic the slight sag in a hanging strop, rather than padding the back to give the same effect. One if these days I'll give it a shot.

I did that with my mini card strops, though the reason was because my balsa cupped. I figured there was little chance it'd stay flat even if I flattened it so i used it cross grain to incorporate the cup effectively otherwise i see no advantage. I can't trust a spongy feeling paddle, hard is the way to go