A friend of mine is a furniture maker and has just moved to a new workshop, so I thought it would be nice to get her a workshop warming present. But what? My usual tactic is to head into the workshop and make something, but obviously that won’t cut it this time. I was stumped for a while, but then it hit me, I could give her the gift of sharp!
As you know, the sharper a tool is the safer and easier to use it is, and this is especially true of woodworking tools. There are many ways to sharpen an edge tool but if you want a really sharp edge then only one thing will work: a strop.
At it’s most basic form, a strop is a length of material that you drag an edge across to hone and polish it. If you’ve ever seen an old movie where a barber is about to give a customer a wet shave with a cut throat razor you’ll have seen a strop in action. I prefer leather, but some people use an offcut of MDF. Whichever you prefer, using a honing compound is essential to get that final mirror shine.
I have two, one in the workshop and one in the kitchen, and it has revolutionised my sharpening routine. As well as getting a perfectly sharp edge as part of your full sharpening routine you can use one to refresh an edge that is getting dull without having to go through the full sharpening process. In short my edge tools stay sharper for longer so I spend less time maintaining tools and more time using them!
I didn’t know whether my friend uses a strop. If she doesn’t then this will be a nice addition to her workshop. If she does then I designed this one to be a bit more user friendly because if she is like me she will spend more time looking for the honing compound than actually stropping the tool!
I started with a scrap offcut of plywood and sanded the life out of it. Plywood can’t really be planed smooth and I don’t generally do powertools so this definitely counted as my exercise for the day. It needs to be flat to work at it’s best and the sides all needed to be smooth to prevent splinters when handling, as plywood can give a nasty bite if you catch a rough edge.
I decided to add a well to the strop. This will hold a block of honing compound so it is always to hand. First I roughly marked it out:
Then I used a knife to define the edges accurately:
I used chisels and a mallet to remove the waste. Once all of the material was removed I gave it a good sanding to smooth it out:
Next I needed to attach the leather. To do this I made two strips of wood and screwed them to the plywood. All the holes were predrilled and countersunk. As I tightened them down I stretched the leather as tightly as I could to give a good solid surface to work. I then trimmed the leather to be flush with the edges of the plywood:
That was the project complete, the only thing left to do was show it set up ready for use:
The flat section in the top right is used to clamp the strop down to a surface to prevent it moving when working, and the honing compound sits nice and secure in it’s holder as planned. I hope it gives her many years of faithful service, and seeing as it is much nicer than my current ones I might be making some more!
