Thread: How to: Easily make a pasted balsa strop

I think coating it with some tung oil or other surface treatment is a great idea. If that is Wolmanized, they use arsenic to make it undesireable to critters and mold/mildew.

If you have ever got a splinter from that stuff, you will know how bad it can be.

Great idea!

I will link your thread for all my future shaving pals in my thread in the Classified section..

THANKS!

This inspired me to chop up the bass wood we had down stairs. I took it over to a buddy's house and had him cut it about 1/2 inch thick.

He put it both on the joiner to be sure his cuts were straight, and put it through the planer on each side.

It's smooth, but my block of CrO doesn't go on smooth. Should I let use smooth it out or sand it down?

now I have more stuff to think about. Thanks for the post

Originally Posted by backpackerx

Just finished making a homemade balsa strop and thought I'd post here since it's so easy. I did this because I'm a newbie who has blown the budget for a while and can't buy one and also because it's so dead easy that even I, who have zero craftsman abilities, could do. Hopefully I can figure out how to get the pictures to post on here.

This literally requires 6 things. A porch or stair spindle from Home Depot ($2), a piece of Balsa from a craft store ($3), something to make one small 2" straight cut, a utility knife, glue, and some sand paper. I saw the spindle at Home Depot and noticed that if cut in half it would make a great base for the paddle and had a nice looking handle built right in! I simply cut the spindle in half, cut some balsa to fit the end, glued it on and sanded it to lap it flat. Cost about $5 and took about 10 minutes. See results below. The last picture is what the spindle looks like together.

I'm going to do this today/tomorrow. How wide is the paddle? The only ones I was able to find last night at Home Depot were about 1.5 wide, and asymmetrical, so I wouldn't be lucky enough to get two from one piece of wood.

Mine is 2" or 2 1/2, I forget right now. It's definitely wide enough to use but isn't 3+ inches to cover the whole width of the blade. 1 1/2 inches would work but would be tougher to keep it even etc so I'd stick with 2 inches and up if you can find it.

Very innovative! Good job!!!

I just found a couple of balsa-pieces at home and can't wait to make a strop like that!

I believe you can use the raw balsa surface as a carrier for the paste and strop directly on that, no leather needed. That's if it's not treated. Even if it is treated it's an awesome start, finish it and there should be no trouble.

X

I am using the balsa as a carrier, just need to glue it to something to reinforce it. And I need to get some paste.