Thread: Options for strops for use with pastes/compounds

I have made quite a few DIY pasted strops.

1. You can find 3" wide balsa and basswood at you local hobby/craft store (Michael's, Hobby Lobby, etc.) The 1/4" thick stuff works great, but I have even used 1/8" basswood. Sand the wood until it is flat and then apply pastes or sprays or glue on cloth or leather as noted below.

2. I purchased a microfiber screen cleaning cloth and glued it to balsa using Elmer's glue sticks. This makes a great substrate for pastes and sprays.

3. You can purchase pieces of vegetable tanned "tooling" leather from hobby shops as well. You can glue the leather to balsa or basswood. You can make some strops with plain leather and some with pastes. You can try some with the smooth side up and others with the suede side up. It only costs a few $ to make a strop, so experiment and see what you like best.

4. I found a plastic cutting board with a lightly textured surface. I coated it with CBN paste. It worked fine.

5. I made a strop by purchasing some Chinese flax linen fabric from JoAnn's Fabric and then ironed on some Pellon backing to make it stiffer. You can either trim it to size and punch holes to make it a hanging strop, or glue it to wood backing as per item 2 above. I currently use mine as a clean linen hanging strop, but am considering making a paddle strop for comparison to the microfiber cloth.

It is fun making DIY strops. Use your imagination. The strops do work.

If you are not into DIY, you can always purchase a strop base from CKTG. This is also a source of Ken Schwartz CBN sprays. I use one of their kangaroo leather strop base for my 0.1 micron CBN spray.

https://www.chefknivestogo.com/strops.html
https://www.chefknivestogo.com/cbnsprays.html