home made pasted strop

a while back, I set out a thread when I was debating on whether to get a Chinese 12k or a Spyderco UF. Long story short, I decided to make my own pasted paddle strop, charged with 0.5 micron green chromium oxide from these dudes:
http://www.handamerican.com/newscary.html

I set out with the idea of making a paddle strop with no tools , excluding sandpaper and a bit of elmers glue. Something any poor grad student could slap together at their apartment with minimal cost or effort.

I made a balsa block the same size as the Norton 8k (just seemed right to me) and glued it to a piece of poplar I got from home depot for cheap. I sanded everything nice and flat, applied the paste and have been using it on my daily shavers for a little while.

Talk about a noticeable difference between a shaving sharp straight off the norton vs. the paddle strop! Sooooo much smoother and sharper, it was really worth the time and money I put into it! (considering I had a minimal investment in either...)

Sure it's not as nice as the ones offered by Tony (which are awesome), but it does the job. Plus now I have a large amount of "extra" green chrome I can put on a linen strop, use for polishing compound etc!

I can post a pic of the ugly little bugger if you want, otherwise just imagine something that one of the beverly hillbillies would use.

It can be very economical to make your own pasted strops. All of mine are home-made, I refuse to pay the going rate for fancy ones. IMHO balsa is superior to leather when it comes to pastes.

I also like the fact that you can customize the size. I have 3 pasted bench strops with CrO paste: a 1", 2.5" and a 4". All of which have their puprose, and each costing less than a cup of coffee.

I having a hard time trying to figure this out. So you use balsa wood instead of leather?? Can you guys post a picture of what you made?

Ive heard of this and it seems to be pretty effective. If Im not nuts I heard Joel say somewhere that balsa is better for diamond paste than leather is. So Im not shocked that you Gents are having good luck with them!

I have been thinking about trying this so would really appreciate some pictures!

When applying the chromium oxide to leather and balsa, are you using the powder and then mixing it with something to make a paste?

no, I bought the liquid. If you order from handamerican it is 60% Cro-Ox by weight or something. Just put some on (like Joel stated in his sticky) and spread it around.

I provided a few perspective shots to show how big I made it. That is a standard norton 8k and a Boker "Our Own" provided for reference (I stole that one from ebay for less than 15 bucks!)

joke1176 said:

I provided a few perspective shots to show how big I made it. That is a standard norton 8k and a Boker "Our Own" provided for reference (I stole that one from ebay for less than 15 bucks!)

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Looks great, thanks!
What was the total $$ for everything?

There is also a guy on ebay that sells diamond paste at a very low price. He doesn't usually advertise the lower grits, but if you email him he has paste down to at least .25 I think. He typically sells a 12 pack variety and is from China. I received my order faster than an item two states away. If you can not find him and you are interested, send a PM and I can send you a link.

Glen

p.s. I am sure it is not the quality that you would get from Classic, but can get it for 1/2 the price or better.

Very nice!

Thanks for the info, and the photos.

Ltltony said:

Looks great, thanks!
What was the total $$ for everything?

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hmm, the paste was the most expensive part, and that was around 12.50 for that bottle...which will last for ever.
The balsa cost me around 3 bucks and I don't remember how much the cheap piece of poplar cost. I think the glue set me back $1.25.

All told, it was pretty cheap. The hardest part was sanding & checking the balsa block, and the top of the poplar to make sure they were dead-flat. And that was pretty darn easy

Like I said above, now I have a bunch of extra paste to use for anything else I want, I put some on my linen strop, and I have been using it as a polishing compound as well. Works great for both!

hm, could you "lap" the balsa on an dmt ?, or is that plain wrong?

Oh, you said that part was easy..

shoot, balsa wood is so soft, I just use some kinda fine grit sandpaper and it cleaned right up.

$2.16 is what this strop cost. It would have been free had I a scrap piece of balsa wood.

This will probably make some of you guys cringe, I cut this with my sawzall. Elmers wood glue overnight compressed between two pieces of wood. Sanded it with some 50 and 220 grit on a block. Done. I've since added paste and it works like a charm
Crappy cell phone picture as my wife is out of town with the good camera.
aaron

I have posted this picture before but it shows the design pretty well. I used red oak boards about 16" long and 3" wide and about 1/2" thick. My oak was free so all it cost was for the pastes and balsa. I used 3/16" thick balsa but 1/8' would work also. The balsa is lightly sanded flat with a belt sander before the pastes are added. The small one is 2" wide and used for travel. I would like to see someone make one out of plain 1/2" thick balsa. http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXJC98&P=0 I think it would hold up pretty well and you could easily make it flat again if it became a little cupped by resanding on the belt sander.

bj

I am new to straights so please forgive me this next question. Can someone explain stropping with balsa? Would it be just the same as it would a regular leather paddle strop. One side without any paste and the other side(s) pasted?

Before I give my two bits on this: I have never used/made a leather paddle strop.

In response to your question indykramer; pretty much the same, it's just easier to make flat initially, costs less, and is easier to repair a nick/gouge if you screw up (which you will if you are new to the process).

I'm sure there is someone out there who would disagree with me on the above of course.

indykramer said:

I am new to straights so please forgive me this next question. Can someone explain stropping with balsa? Would it be just the same as it would a regular leather paddle strop. One side without any paste and the other side(s) pasted?

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Here you go. There are leather strops that you hang and it may have a canvas or linen side and a leather side. You use this before shaving. The strops that they are making are loosely called paddle strops. I bought a 4 sided one with leather on each side that is coated with 4 different grits of diamond paste. Chromium is not diamond but the same general idea. It is a 0.5 micron paste that you use after your razor has been honed to put a very sharp edge on the razor. I also have 0.25 diamond on my strop so I do not use the Chromium. I am going to try the balsa strop with Chromium because the claim is that a razor stropped with Chromium is a lot smoother than diamond and gives a really nice shave. I think that is it in a nut shell and not at all comprehensive but it will fill in some of your gaps.


Later,
Richard

As some of you on this very post know from our dual membership at SRP, I have been offering sample sizes of Chromium Oxide .5 micron powder to apply to at least 2 strops. Hand American sells the powder, but the downside is the 4 oz tub costs $18 and is enough to apply to the strops in an entire town. WAY WAY WAY more than anyone would ever use. I'm going to post on B&B in the most appropriate area for such a thing. Problem is, DE users would have absolutely no need for this, so a general BST post would fall on a lot of uninterested ears....

Chris L