# Strops. What is best (alone or in comb.): Leather, Canvass, Linen, Silk, or Salvaged Seat Belt ?



## DMIHOMECENTER (Mar 5, 2011)

If stropping is part of your sharpening regimen, please tell me what you use and how you use it. Thanks.


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

I mostly use a soft linen wheel charged with green rouge - and it
does take a light touch and knowing when to stop, lest the edge
get rounded over.

When done right though the edges are actually razor sharp and
I often have bald spots on my arm to prove it.

For the insides of more acute carving tools I am not convinced
a soft buff is effective and in any case something coarser is needed
here and there. Plane irons and chisels get pretty beat up but
fortunately they are straight and workable with whatever stone
is available. I have tools in two states, but between the two 
my only common sharpening gear is the Makita wet wheel grinder
with a 1000 grit wheel. It a matter of seconds it corrects many
edge problems and a couple of touches on the buffing wheel 
puts the tool back to work.

It may be unscientific, but my intuition and experience tells me 
that an edge honed on a fine, flat waterstone outlasts one 
polished on a buffing wheel. The wheel is lots faster though.


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## funchuck (Jan 11, 2010)

I use leather. First I take some strokes on the rough side with green crayon, then, I take 5 strokes on the smooth side (with nothing added). I use the lee valley leather strop that is glued to wood. It's a bit on the small side, so I plan to get a bigger one.


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## waho6o9 (May 6, 2011)

Make your own. Get some leather, spray 3m adhesive, flatten it. Keep it where you work and strop every so often. You'll be amazed at the difference of a constantly honed chisel. Makes work a pleasure.


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## DMIHOMECENTER (Mar 5, 2011)

*But I *like* cows ? *


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## jimp (Feb 7, 2008)

leather with Herb's Yellowstone stropping compound. It works awesome!


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