Power Strop............

[Stu in Tokyo]

I don't know if this is exactly the right place to put this thread, but I thought as it has to do with "Sharp Things" I'd post it here. I don't know how this will go over, some consider it cheating, or a short cut, but it just works! I also use a lot of water stones for my sharp things.

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

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!

[Alan DuBoff]

Great idea, I've seen Tod's post before, haven't done it yet though.

I have a lap-sharp that really gets my edge tools sharp, but this power strop does look like a sweet idea.