How to Sharpen Gouges and V Tools with the Flexcut Slip Strop

hi I'm PJ from treeline usa.com I'm here today to do a quick demo on how to use the Flex cuts lip strop to sharpen both your knives and gauges let's get started the flex cuts lip strop comes with a couple different things so it comes with the basswood block that has leather on a couple different faces and then also the polishing compound and any time that you're using this you want to make sure that you rub away the polishing compound on whatever surface that you're using now sharpening your knives and the outside bevel of the tools you can do that on this flat side right here and so what you do is you rub the polishing compound down there and and be generous with this this is what's doing the the sharpening the leather just kind of gives it something to stick to but this compound is kind of like sent the the grit on sandpaper and so be generous with this and this block will still last you a long time but when you're sharpening your knives again most carving tools are very flat in the bevels and so as we're sharpening this we want to keep the bevel nice and flat against the leather and we pull that away from the sharp edge so here's the dull side and the sharp side right here so I'm going to pull away from that and I put my finger on top to kind of keep that down and flat then I come back the other direction as well now notice the black coming off that just shows that it's doing something it's taking off just a fine amount of metal and so it is sharpening and polishing that blade so and then be careful on this too sometimes when people are sharpening they have a tendency when they're sharpening to do this and they end up rolling that bevel be careful of that and keep it flat all the way across and lift straight up on both sides if you roll it like this you end up rounding that bevel making it thicker and harder more difficult going into the wood so keep it good and flat so sharpening knives I stopped a nice drop out every 15 20 minutes or so and just make maybe about 10 to 15 passes on each side of the blade and that'll maintain it and keep it from ever really getting dull on gouges that's where the slip strop really shines because you can sharpen the outside bevel of the tool again you've already rub polishing compound on there and it's important to keep that bevel good and flat so that bill is flat against here I'm doing there the right angle if I'm down here too far I'm not quite getting the tip and if I'm up here too high I'm rounding it over or creating a secondary bevel so I want to try to keep that as flat as possible through here so then as I'm sharpening I was coming back and forth now as you're sharpen you can look at the width of your mark and if that's about the same width as the the bevel then it should be pretty close to the right angle if it's really skinny you might be at the wrong angle so another way to test that too is to grab like a sharpie marker and mark on your bevel and that will tell you really quickly if you're sharpening the right angle or not so I'm gonna intentionally do it wrong so you can see here we have black right up towards the tip and not back here so that means I need to raise it up just a little bit higher as I'm sharpening to ensure that I'm making a good pass with it now you see it all came off there's a little bit left right here so probably a start just a little bit higher but again that sharpie marker trick is a great way to kind of ensure that you're getting at the right bevel but make about 10-15 passes on this and then flip it over and then the profile it fits best rub your polishing compound on there again and again this is the grit or this is the abrasive that's actually doing the sharpening and all we're doing is knocking off any kind of burr or belt or burr that may have been created on the inside when we were sharpening the outside bevel of the tool so usually only just a couple passes are required on this but you see that that will fit right down on there and if it's not perfect then you can kind of pull it to one side and then pull it to the other side and work way back so what's nice about the slip strap is you can use it with several different brands of tools and just find the appropriate profile to work with so that that's on a on a gouge they're on a V tool for most people that's the trickiest gouge to sharpener trickiest tool to sharpen in your bag because you have three different profiles you have the flat flat and this kind of rounded part right here on the back so as you're sharpening this what I do is I take it hold a flat against that bevel and pull it straight backwards and do that again maybe your five to ten times flip it on the other side and sharp on the other side of that bevel now sharpening this part right here in the middle there's a lot of different opinions on that there on the mark on what to do but what I do is I take and make a couple just small passes what I don't want to do on a V tool is really round this over too much I want to keep it as a V and not au on the bottom of that tool so I just make a couple small passes and then flip it over onto the profile that it fits best and route some polishing compound onto it and then take and knock out any kind of bird that's created well it makes a slip strap so handy as you can see that it gets right to the point right to the tip of that tool and where sometimes you might have a little bit of a burr hung up in there and you always get it where it's tearing the wood out rather than cutting good and clean it sharp so make a few passes on that and again you're back to carving again the last one I'll show you has done a little bit more open tool same idea we just polish it back and forth and again do that often every 15 20 minutes or so and then what you can do is you can take it on this flat flatter piece of leather which has just a slight dome to it so it works better with profiles that just have a slight curve like a number three or number five and with that you can take and knock off any kind of bird that's created on that but it has several different profiles in there including a real micro one several different use these and sometimes what you can do is you can make your own little cut in this so you take your a small gouge a little micro tool cut up into the basswood here rub the polishing compound into it and then take your tool and pull straight backwards and now wherever you made that cut that's going to be the exact same shape as your profile here and then you can flip it over and knock out the Bur so there's a little bit of room in there for some of the smaller gouges you might have but the slip strap is just incredibly handy for sharpening all your knives and and most of your your gouges and Vee tools I hope this video has been helpful showing you how to use the Flex cuts lip strap there are a lot of different sharpening supplies in the market there's a lot of different straps but the flex cuts lips drop really does work so to purchase your strop or other sharpening supplies visit us at treeline usa.com and for more videos like this please click to subscribe to our youtube channel thanks so much for watching you

Channel: Treeline USA

Views: 105,668

Keywords: flexcut slip strop, flexcut slipstrop, how to sharpen gouges, how to sharpen v tools, how to sharpen woodcarving tools, flexcut slip strap, how to use a strop to sharpen tools, how to sharpen woodcarving chisels, sharpening woodcarving tools, treelineusa

Id: HHvxtAa4D_k

Length: 7min 46sec (466 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 26 2019