Making a new strop.

I threw together my first strop, just to experiment and see how it went.  Of course, I really liked it.  The only problem was that I made it out of things I had laying around and it is a bit too narrow for some of my plane blades.  Time to make an improved version. 

I put a bit of thought into the design so it would function the way I wanted it to.  My first attempt was thwarted though.  Seems that piece of ash was tasty to some bug or another.  Oh well, nothing a trip to the shelf didn't fix and I found some maple instead.

I am pretty pleased with how it turned out.  It should serve a long time in keeping my blades keen.  I find that I strop more than I do any actual sharpening now.  I take less time, more often and give my blades a few swipes and keep them at their best.  This was the reasoning behind the design.  So it is always near at hand and ready for use in multiple ways.

Thanks for dropping by