Make a Strop for Sharpening Knives!

yes it's me again Chauncey Faircloth back with another episode of exceptionally fine woodworking or not [Music] [Applause] okay so this week we're going to do some woodworking not exceptionally fine woodworking we're just going to make a really bone simple tool that will help you get your knives scary sharp it's a double sided paddle straw [Music] I'll start with a piece of scrap mahogany that I found in my wood bin the size isn't that important I just tested to see what would be a standard stroke that I would use whilst dropping and that's how long I made it will also use some vegetable tanned leather it's important that you use vegetable tanned leather also sometimes known as sole leather or tooling leather there are various other names what you don't want is stretchy chromium tanned leathers or thin leathers that you'd see used in furniture or garment making this is heavy cowhide that's tanned in a manner so as to be pliable but not really soft and stretchy I picked up this piece on eBay as belt leather for 10 or 15 bucks it's got a smooth exterior side and then the suede also known as flesh on the interior side will use both I'll begin by marking out a handle which will be used so I can hang it on the wall now I'll drill a 5/8 inch hole and then I'll cut out the outline for the handle on the bandsaw [Music] [Music] next a little cleanup on the disc grinder and some quick sanding breaking the corners to minimize chipping now this is definitely not intended as some kind of heirloom piece of wood work so it's 120 grit and quit [Applause] next I'll cut out the leather for the stropping surfaces I'm just making it to fit the top of the paddle once that's accomplished I'll attach the leather to each side of the paddle now I'm using a fairly fancy industrial tape to attach the leather to the handle this is a 3mm industrial quality transfer tape that costs about 30 bucks a roll of course you could use any of a million adhesives here from superglue to leather working glues to epoxy there's not really a right way to do this you just lay down the tape and peel off the backing leaving an extremely tenacious adhesive now the nice thing about it is that unlike say super glue it won't soak into the leather potentially creating hard spots also if I don't like the way things are going with it I can still take it off without destroying the leather so on one side I'll put the smooth side out and on the other I'll go suede or flesh side out this way you can use different types of abrasives on each side or maybe reserve the suede for stropping certain kinds of blades and the smooth side for others now honestly I've always used smooth leather for stropping so I'm going to experiment with the suede to see how well it works like I said one of the advantages of the transfer tape is that if I don't like how the suede works I can just pop it off flip it over and use the other side [Music] yeah okay that's it we're done if you wanted to get really ambitious and fine woodworker II you could have given the wood some kind of finish but I'm not gonna now it's on to getting this blade razor sharp how does that work well stay tuned I'm going to do a video about that shortly [Music] thanks for watching guys if you feel like you got something out of this video don't forget to subscribe also click on the link to patreon for a great way to give back to the channel plus check me out on Instagram Facebook Twitter links in the description if you want something sharp and pointy maybe a gift for yourself or one of the cooler people in your life check out my tactics Armory website and pick up one of our tactical or outdoor knives and finally if you want to learn to make come-ons or Japanese swords check out Walther Sorrels blades comm where you can find videos about how I make home owns as well as forging mounting polishing and fittings for Japanese swords thanks and see you soon [Music]

Channel: Walter Sorrells

Views: 316,175

Rating: 4.8203936 out of 5

Keywords: knife, sharp, how to, how to sharpen knife, simple, easy, project, DIY, blade, smith, knife making, how to make knives, kitchen, cut, chop, sharpen, strop, leather working, wood working, EDC, prepper, survivalist, self defense, carry, Walter Sorrells, bushcraft

Id: fNDlFr6OKrI

Length: 6min 44sec (404 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 04 2017