Thread: Cork As A Strop material

While sitting here at the"puter" & my work bench i was looking at all the stuff I had around me & got thinking what would make a good or different strop material. My 12" rule was upside down on my bench with a cork backing. Made me think about cork a bit. It is grown in sandy soils & I decided to try stropping a medium sharp vintage Imperial pocket knife to see if it made much difference in the blade. I did 25 laps on the cork & I have to say it made for a sharper edge or maybe a smoother edge. Don't know if it is a great strop material but I perceived it changed the edge. It was dry with no compound on it.
May head over to Hobby Lobby & get some cork to try with some different compounds & see what happens. Did I say it's cold outside & my old body doesn't care for outdoor activities much so here I am brainstorming to at least keep the mind busy. LOL
Anybody tried it???

Slawman

I bet it would have a lot of draw. I used to have 4 cork trees along 1 side of my driveway. I have a good size chunk of bark in a box around here somewhere. The natural stuff has no binder of course but I wonder about the manufactured sheets and if it's all the same. That may have a big difference in how it acts as a strop. Interesting experiment you got going for sure.

I kept a 7-day set of modern-grind wedges going great for 2 years using only a piece of thin balsa wood.
No pastes, nor fabric.
It got better and better with use. Still have the balsa.

I have used Balsa for a while. With CROX and without. works great. There is a local hobby shop that buy's close out's & always has the balsa pretty cheap. Looking at a 3/8" X 3" X 10" piece as I write. Cheap way to keep me off the street's & out of my wife's hair!

Slawman "No Mayo in my slaw"!

I've used cork with CrOx on it for chisels before and I thought it worked better than balsa because it didn't dent.
I've also used it to "cork" blades (non razor) to get the burrs off of them.

So I suspect it would work fine with a razor.

Should I just toss this one out?

Originally Posted by Josephjones556

Should I just toss this one out?

No, just use shorter strokes. Scrapes is ok, stay away from the cuts. Now, back to using cork for stropping