Thread: Best place to buy balsa strop...

Hi,

Bought a balsa strop off ebay and its not quite flat... Can anyone point me in the right direction for a well made balsa strop?

TIA - john

I bought mine from whippeddog.com; Larry sells one in his "poor man's strop kit" that comes with chromium oxide on one side and iron oxide on the other and he includes extra powder to reapply later. If you do a search at the top of the page, I think there are some threads about making your own balsa strop too. Good luck!

Originally Posted by MBR1965

I bought mine from whippeddog.com; Larry sells one in his "poor man's strop kit" that comes with chromium oxide on one side and iron oxide on the other and he includes extra powder to reapply later. If you do a search at the top of the page, I think there are some threads about making your own balsa strop too. Good luck!

Thanks!

I'm looking for just a well made paddle strop with balsa affixed - not into making one myself...

-john

My local hobby shop had 3/4" thick 3" wide balsa in 36" lentghs so I got one and cut it into three pieces. I simply lapped it flat on sandpaper glued to glass. Then I applied 1u, .5u, and .1u diamond paste. I didn't have to really make anything.

And the secret BTW is less is more on the paste. It's got to be rubbed in to the balsa, not coat the balsa. If there is a coating then it is too much. In this case too much of a good thing is a bad thing because it is like having a really thick and gooey slurry so the sharpness is limited by the slurry effect. It can get sharp but not nearly as sharp as doing it right. The particles need to be embedded in the balsa and not rolling around on top of it. Anyway that is how I was taught and I haven't had time to experiment with doing it the "wrong" way to find out for myself, so take it with a gram of salt.

Whipped Dog. Comes loaded with 0.5 micron chrom-ox on one side and 0.1 micron iron-ox on the other. Plus extra -ox of each.

So... stupid question - if you hone with tape on the spine do you also strop on the balsa with tape?

-john

Originally Posted by TulaneBoy

And the secret BTW is less is more on the paste. It's got to be rubbed in to the balsa, not coat the balsa. If there is a coating then it is too much. In this case too much of a good thing is a bad thing because it is like having a really thick and gooey slurry so the sharpness is limited by the slurry effect. It can get sharp but not nearly as sharp as doing it right. The particles need to be embedded in the balsa and not rolling around on top of it. Anyway that is how I was taught and I haven't had time to experiment with doing it the "wrong" way to find out for myself, so take it with a gram of salt.

I definitely agree with that, as I started off doing it wrong - with far too much CrOx paste on the balsa. I wiped a lot of it off it worked OK. But as I've carried on using it and it's getting more firmly impacted into the balsa, it really is working better.