Power Strop

[Stu in Tokyo]

I'm putting this in the "Hand Tools" area, as the tools being sharpened are hand tools, but if the mods think it is in the wrong place, of course, move it.

A buddy of mine, Tod Evans, shared this idea with me, and this is SO good, I just had to share!!

Basically you get a round piece of fairly thick MDF, and attach a piece of leather too it, mount it on something that spins, and then you add oil and polishing rouge to the leather. Yep, that simple, but I like simple.........

Ready to cut out.

Cutting a rough circle with my jigsaw (it will be trued up on the lathe)

I also cut a piece of leather slightly larger than the piece of MDF, you can also see the mandrel I bout to chuck up in a drill or on the drill chuck on the lathe.

I needed to drill a hole 12.7 mm in diameter.

Drilled the hole and fit the mandrel

With the drill chuck on the headstock of the lathe, I tried to true things up, but, the mandrel was too flexible, and the whole disc wobbled badly.........plan B

I took out the mandrel, and mounted the disc on my 6" faceplate, this worked VERY well.

I was easily able to true up the edge and the face of the disc, but man that MDF is DUSTY to turn, notice the cyclone hose right there.....

I bought some glue that is designed for sticking leather to wood, it is a kind of contact cement.

I let the glue sit 10 minutes, like it says on the package, then I stuck it together, and pounded the heck out of it, then for good measure............

I clamped another piece of plywood on top of it and let it sit for 15 minutes or so.

Back on the the lathe, I trued up the edge again, cutting off a thin slice of the leather.

The minor spots of glue on the face just scraped off with the back of my razor knife.

Tod told me to now soak the leather in oil, so I did, he said any old oil would do, so I had some electric chainsaw chain oil sitting around, I figured that it would work well. I really soaked it and let it sit, then soaked it again. Then after 10 minutes or so, I wiped off the excess oil, and back on the lathe it went.

Here it is loaded with Rouge, Tod said it would make a paste, and it sure did.

So, how did it work?

Man alive did it work!! I cannot believe how well it works, I have a bunch of chisels, they are ones that I inherited or I won on auction,
that were in fairly rough shape, and needed a lot of work. I just ground them on the grinder, on the coarse wheel, and then went straitght to the Power Strop.

Most were sharp enough to shave the hair on my forearm in less than a minute, WOW!!!!

Bright, shinny, and SHARP!!

Can't thank Tod enough for suggesting this, boy will this be a time saver!

After sharpening 10 chisels, the Power Strop is still in great condition.
You have to be careful how you present the chisel to the power strop, but it did not take me long to figure that one out.

Man does this work!!

Cheers!

 

[Philly]

Nice one, Stu!
I have a 4 inch diameter felt wheel that I mount in my drill press and use for power honing. Fantastic results in seconds!!
Please note - this is for final homing only! You still need to grind decent bevels on your tools!!
Cheers
Philly

 

[Chris Knight]

Stu,
I have done the same thing in the drill press. The MDF by itself (without the leather) works pretty well and there is less chance of dubbing the edge. I just smear a suitable compound - rouge or for harder steel, a chromium based one, leave the blade in a guide (I use the Eclipse guide)and give it a quick whirl - works a treat.

 

[Stu in Tokyo]

I go from the #120 grit wheel on the grinder right to the strop, mirror finish, shaving sharp in second.

Cheers!

 

[Woodmagnet]

Thanks Stu and Tod. :wink:

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Good work Stu.

This was one of my creations (more like re-inventions ... nothing new under the sun) that I posted at Ubeaut some years back, and published in FWW mag a fews years ago.

My first machine was a basic and small belt sander, and the "honing disk", as I called it, was two sanding disks glued back-to-back. The one velcro side held it to the machine, and the other was great for holding Veritas green rouge.

You can see how I use it. The advantage of this system over a wheel type (such as a felt wheel on a grinder - which I have) is that you can see what you are doing and it is much easier to align the face of the blade with the strop. In a couple of seconds I can take a blade to a another level of sharpness.

The down side to this disk construction was that it did not last more than a couple of weeks (or months - depends on how often you sharpen). So I made up a couple in leather.

The first was one like yours. The downside was that thick leather will compress and this then dubs the edge of a blade. So I then turned to chamois leather (available from hardware stores for cleaning motor cars). It is thin and can be stretched over a hard disk (the front side of a sanding disk) and remains flat. It hold the rouge very well, and is durable. I have had the same one for over two years.

Here it is on my curent machine, which has a 9" face disk.

I must add that I currently reserve this honing disk for my lathe tools, preferring to use a couple of horse butt leather strops for chisels and planes. Why? Just easier and that much more controllable, especially if you want to strop the back of a blade (which I would not do on the honing disk).

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Stu in Tokyo]

Hey Derek, great info added to the pool!

I've not found that the soft thick leather rounds over the edge, but then again, I don't have the blade on there more than a few seconds, so ??

The thinner leather does make some sense, that is for sure, good point!

Cheers!