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Backyard Balsa Strop...20minutes..ish

Discussion in 'Sharpening forum' started by FinnEdge, Oct 17, 2015.

  1. Hi all, just wanted to share my homemade stropping block. Made from bits and pieces in the garage.
    I've made two, for trial and error. Will load one with micron paste the other with chromium oxide.

    Interested to hear your experiences and results have been between the two pastes/compounds and if you have found something better.

    Balsa Strop (1).JPG
    Approx. 240mm x 80mm x 12mm
    Real measurements 9 1/2inch x 3 1/4in x 1/2in ;)

    Balsa Strop (3).JPG

    Base block is Australian spotted gum, roughly 19mm thick.

    Made it so it will sit in the stone holder.
     
  2. I used balsa for quite awhile before I got ahold of Dave Martell's hard felt. I tried it bare and with various grits of diamond spray. I liked the results, but they seemed to leave the edge too smooth for my taste. The hard felt seems to remove any residual burr, and still leave the high grit micro serrations which make the cut aggressive. If I ever run out of a supply of the felt though, I'll be back to the balsa for sure.
     
  3. Nice handi work! Like Cris, I've messed around with several compounds on balsa (pastes and diamond spray) and found them to over polish the edge; of these I liked diamond the best. I then moved to dry stropping on a takenoko, which left a finer but toothy edge that didn't slip on product. Lately I've added an extra step of a couple light strokes on bare rock-hard felt (as recommended by Cris), which seems to take that takenoko edge just one step further without any sacrifice.
     
  4. Thank you for the feedback guys. Quick question as I have never used felt.
    How do you clean the strop surface?
    With the process of stropping there is metal product removal.
     
  5. You don't clean it...actually you don't do anything to it...just use it until it's no longer giving you the edge you want, then replace it. It will slowly soften up over time and become less effective. There is no real metal removal...but it grabs any residual burr/wire edge (assuming you did your job sharpening and left minimal to begin with!) and cleans it right up. Some people use diamond on the felt too...but I prefer it clean.

    What most places sell as 'hard felt' isn't the right stuff btw. I don't know where @Dave Martell got it, but I would like to since he's not selling it anymore lol.
     
  6. Thanks for info Cris
     
  7. Absolutely!!
     
  8. kentos

    kentos Founding Member

    Very nice! My experiences are with straight razors, but hard felt sprayed with .5 micron CBN or Poly Diamond gave eye watering sharp edges. Eventually I just went with sprayed leather strops as the wool seemed to be overly abrasive, possibly even more abrasive than the CBN giving the edge an "overcooked" sensation. But I digress and shouldn't bring up Straight Razor voodoo on a knife forum :jump
     
  9. LOL!

    I only used felt on razors like 3x...for the exact reason you listed. The balsa was better for razors by a mile, particularly with .25 micron diamond. Eventually I just made myself a compressed horse butt strop, and a synthetic 'canvas' strop from James Lyons (AMAZING strop...seriously). Now I do 1500 shapton to bevel set, then straight to my Apache Gila...and strop. If the Gila just doesn't seem to do its job on sharpness, I'll go to a piece of rainbow fluorite I have...then strop. Works like a charm :).
     

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