The only sharpening question we have not asked yet at the creek....

[Chris Hachet]

So I like to strop when I sharpen, I find it helpful. Also, I use leather to strop.

I have a vegan friend who is an animal rights activist who does not want to use leather to strop with on moral grounds. What is the best non animal product to suggest in the place of leather?

Chris

[Sean Hughto]

A lot of folks use a chunk of dense mdf.

[Derek Cohen]

You could try lettuce leaves.

Regards from Perth

Derek

p.s. hardwood works better than leather.

[Chris Hachet]

Thanks!

Chris

[Zach Dillinger]

I have tried stropping on a piece of a brown paper grocery bag on my bench top. I forget where I heard about it but thought it was neat. It works very well but it is easy to cut them up if you aren't careful.

I agree with Derek re: hardwood. The strop that lives on my bench is a piece of quartersawn white oak with Noxon metal polish on one side and a piece of leather with yellow compound on the other. I tend to just use the oak side more often than not.

[george wilson]

I've been using an MDF strop with green LV compound on it. I like the feel of leather better,but the MDF doesn't round the cutting edge like leather can. I keep it in a shelf where dust cannot settle on it.

[lowell holmes]

+1 for mdf and green LV compound!

[Robert LaPlaca]

How about some thin cardboard from the back of a pad of paper (like a legal writing pad), charge it with some green or yellow compound, place on flat surface..

[Malcolm Schweizer]

A piece of very thick felt, and I don't mean felt cloth. You can buy felt that is like a brick and they sell it at knife stores for taking the burr off an edge. I have a felt wheel for my Worksharp 2000 and you could strop on it without the machine by hand. It is a bit small, but would work. Balsa wood works as well, and as stated, MDF.

Good question by the way. My father-in-law is vegetarian, but thank goodness he eats fish (I don't get it either, but he does) and so when he visits at least I can have fish that week. He spends his time trying to make tofu taste more like meat. I am always kidding him about that.

[Pat Barry]

So I like to strop when I sharpen, I find it helpful. Also, I use leather to strop.

I have a vegan friend who is an animal rights activist who does not want to use leather to strop with on moral grounds. What is the best non animal product to suggest in the place of leather?

Chris
What if the cow died from old age? Is that a problem to vegans?

[Robert LaPlaca]

Good question by the way. My father-in-law is vegetarian, but thank goodness he eats fish (I don't get it either, but he does) and so when he visits at least I can have fish that week. He spends his time trying to make tofu taste more like meat. I am always kidding him about that.

I hate MDF, but I got to say your FIL has a better chance of making MDF taste like meat than tofu

[Chris Hachet]

What if the cow died from old age? Is that a problem to vegans?

That is an interesting question....

[george wilson]

I don't advise the use of felt,thick or otherwise. It would be worse than leather for rounding the edge over. Paper would be fine,especially with suitable compound,but is too easily cut and destroyed for you to have to unglue(or whatever) and replace. MDF works well. I just advise keeping it where dust or abrasive dust cannot get on it. I leave mine in a shelf,user side down. No trouble getting a razor sharp edge with it and the green compound. Guess I'm a little paranoid about the dust,since it has no give to it.

[Jim Matthews]

I did a quick search on "Synthetic strop"

http://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/Assets/images/large-strop.jpg

http://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/Large-Synthetic-Strop-P34.aspx?gclid=CPmOpJ-bq8MCFeXm7AodHFgAsw

I couldn't say how many Naugas died to provide this "hide".
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?205548-Plain-Stropping-Looking-for-Advice

[Stu Gillard]

Each to their own I suppose.

I don't know if I could go without my beeswax, hide glue and shellac.

[Patrick McCarthy]

[QUOTE=george wilson;2365213]I've been using an MDF strop with green LV compound on it.

Well George, I don't really know what to think about this UNLESS you can tell me the Rockwell scale hardness of the MDF. Maybe we need to set up a testing protocol, create some graphs, . . . . . .

Sorry, I just couldn't resist. Laughing WITH you my friend, not AT you.

[Jeff Ranck]

You could try lettuce leaves.



I spit my drink all over my monitor with that comment.

[Michael Ray Smith]

A piece of very thick felt, and I don't mean felt cloth.

What's the felt made of? Wool? Is that okay to a vegan? Even worse, is it fur felt? (I once tried to tell my wife that they get the wild rabbit fur used to my my fur felt hats by trapping the rabbits, shearing them, and then turning them lose. She didn't buy it.)

[george wilson]

Well,I actually have a Shore hardness tester that MIGHT be almost appropriate for testing MDF. It is an "A" scale tester,which is actually for testing the hardness of rubber. A hard rubber shoe heel is about 80 Shore,for example. They probably do have an appropriate tester for just about everything manufactured,since it is necessary for making uniform quality products. I don't know what system is used for MDF,though.(I try to not use that material in my work!:))

But,THAT particular thread got me into trouble anyway.

[paul cottingham]

Green rouge on maple works well for me. I have both a leather strop and the hard maple one. Both have rouge on them. Both work very well.
its funny, even when I was a vegetarian (25 years!) leather was never a problem for me.

[Bruce Mack]

Most espousals have impurities and escape clauses. I'm a vegetarian and eat no meat or fish. We get our eggs from our own well-cared for hens, but I do eat dairy and wear a leather belt and shoes. Yet, I refuse to buy a leather strop. Good intentions, poor implementation.

[Stanley Covington]

My razor strop has a thick canvas leaf.

Stan

[george wilson]

I TRIED to eat a strop,but found it a bit too tough.

I'm sure any hard wood will work fine. I just had easy access to a couple of pieces of MDF for the asking at the museum's millwork shop. They use a lot of it making display cases.

[Alan Schwabacher]

I TRIED to eat a strop,but found it a bit too tough.

To see how it's done, Mr. Chaplin's work "The Gold Rush" is quite useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY0DOnNK3Wg

[Steve Bates]

I understand linen strops do a good job as well.

my two pennies

[Chuck Hart]

What do vegans do for shoes?

[george wilson]

Corefam,possibly. The most uncomfortable shoes I ever had in the 60's. Fortunately,the neighbor's dog tore them up. Those things never do "break in" to fit your feet.

[Mel Fulks]

George,I had a pair of corfam shoes,too. Uncomfortable but so long wearing I've wondered if that's why they stopped
making them. They were a "miracle product"in their day.

[Garrett Ellis]

Use a cow that's still alive.

[Mike Cherry]

There's always palm stropping. Your own palm, of course, not a dead one...

[Kevin Bourque]

Why not use some old growth redwood?

[Winton Applegate]

trapping the rabbits, shearing them, and then turning them lose. She didn't buy it.)

Ha, ha, ha, ha
Thanks for that.

I decided to avoid this thread because I am so vocal when it comes to stropping plane blades.
Then I decided a little peek wouldn't hurt and I might even learn something.
Looks like I been missing out.
I eat the heck out of beef etc.

Queenmasteroftheuniverseandbabybunnytrainer and I were both vegetarians for years and years and years well before we met. It is worth doing at certain periods in SOME peoples lives.
A steady diet of it, (sorry couldn't help that) for a life time can be less than optimum for some people health wise. I have been on most of the extreme "high performance" diets for athletes and meditators. Nothing, and I mean nothing, surpasses the Pritikin Promise (http://www.amazon.com/The-Pritikin-Promise/dp/B003CVV0QC/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422224816&sr=1-2&keywords=pritikin+promise) low fat diet (which is mostly vegetarian) for being able to run or ride full tilt up a long climb while smiling and watching your competitor wither and die of oxygen debt and then fall far behind.
But
it is very difficult to keep up year in and year out.
For heart patients, which is what it was designed for, it is THEE life style change that kept scores of people alive.

As far as tofu . . . do not underestimate tofu. You haven't lived until you have tasted some of Q's pressed and then marinaded tofu. It isn't that she is trying to duplicate meat. Forget that. It is just a wonderful and substantial replacement for the meat coarse. We eat beef one week and tofu another.
Yum

Strop ?

No I won't go there unless we are talking carving tools.

[Chris Griggs]

The only sharpening question we have not asked yet at the creek....



Sorry Chris, hate to break it to ya, but I'm a vegan and have brought this up before. Still a good question though and I haven't brought up for quite some time
:-)

[Actually, I do use shellac which I guess technically makes me a really really really strict vegetarian who actively avoids all animal products other than shellac and not technically a vegan :-) ]

Anyway, I've tried several types of non leather strops. For actual stropping (e.g. something bare that has no compound/abrasive added to it, I have yet to find anything better than palm stropping. I've tried paper, paper bags, cardboard/cereal boxes, as well as the urethane Wood Is Good strop. I like my palm the best for chisels, plane blades, and straight razors (again, thats for something without compound added).

For something with compound (which I really consider to be more of an ultra fine "stone" than a strop), its tough to beat mdf for chisels and plane blades. Its flat, its hard, and it holds compound well. For razors I use balsa with chromium and/or iron oxide. Balsa is great for razors but too soft for small chisels. I also use my Wood Is Good strop with compound, but I really only use the round edge of it for things like molding planes. I don't find the flat part of the WIG strop good for much of anything, its soft and not flat so it can dub over chisels and plane blades when used with compound. It really intended for carving tools not planes and chisels.

There are some faux leathers out there that have good potential, and there is a fella in the razor world who sells what is said to be a fantastic synthetic strop, but I haven't tried either.

For your friend, I'd advise just getting some mdf and some type of 1 micron or less compound using that to put the final edge on tools. Though depending how strict he/she is they may even want to check to make sure mdf is vegan. There are animal products in a lot of things that one wouldn't expect (wine for instance is often filtered over fish bladders) and its pretty much impossible to avoid all of them. I've never looked into mdf in terms the animal ingredients it might contain, but again, depending on his/her strictness, level of concern, and how deep down the vegan rabbet hole s/he wants to go down it may be worth looking into. If MDF turns out to be unacceptable, as others have said, a flat piece of hardwood works quite well too.

[Graham Haydon]

"make sure mdf is vegan" that's a request I've yet to hear from a client :) but never say never!

[Winton Applegate]

even when I was a vegetarian (25 years!) leather was never a problem for me.
The cows may have had a different view.

I know what you mean though. I sort of missed the sixties. From the time I could walk, '63 or so I walked around with a transistor radio listening to country music and saying "Dammed hippies".
Then I met some. And started listening to music other than Marty Robins, Buck Owens etc.

. . . anyway somewhere along there when I was a kid I got all into leather working
discovered the library
grew up a little
started being a vegetarian
discovered leather was cows
stopped leather working
read all sorts of cool books about all the great leather work the hippies were doing; back in the day . . . by then it was the seventies and I had missed it but was fascinated to read about it all.
was thoroughly depressed . . . no '60s no leather work . . . then I . . .
discovered girls
forgot about leather working
Rode bikes with girls for quite a long time and was thoroughly happy.

Then I came back to country and ADDED the music and other facets of it to my life.
A little of everything I say.
Life has it's little ways (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IYjP65XV74).

[george wilson]

I might add that Corefam does not breathe. Bad for your feet.

[Chris Griggs]

What if the cow died from old age? Is that a problem to vegans?

I can't answer for all vegans, but for many, yes it would be. Not necessarily because they would find that specific scenario wrong in, but rather because most vegans are vegans, because they are boycotting an industry/industries whose practices they find abhorrent, and would not want to have or use something supports those industries or promotes them even somewhat indirectly. While that specific strop from that specific cow may not be an issue, most vegans would choose an alternative because A) I/they would want to support/promote that alternative and B) using said strop from the cow that died of old age may encourage others to buy strops which most likely would not come from such a source.

Though again, it would depend on the individual. While by its strictest definition Veganism is extremely rigid, in reality there is variation in what most of us who call ourselves vegans will use and own and under what circumstances . For instance, while I call myself a vegan, I do use shellac and I still own two wool suits. I'm not perfect at following my ethos (no one is) and the reality is that it is darn near impossible do it 100% of the time.


What's the felt made of? Wool? Is that okay to a vegan? Even worse, is it fur felt? (I once tried to tell my wife that they get the wild rabbit fur used to my my fur felt hats by trapping the rabbits, shearing them, and then turning them lose. She didn't buy it.)

Felt can often be wool yes, and most vegans wouldn't won't use wool. The 2 wool suits I mention above were the only wool I've purchase in probably 4-5 years. They were an exception I made because I needed them for my job, and couldn't find a half decent non-wool suit...some vegans would not have made that exception. Truthfully it bothers me that my suits are wool and I hope to be able to find an alternative in the future.


What do vegans do for shoes?

Believe it or not shoes are actually pretty easy. Lots of casual vegan shoes out there (usually canvass) by Converse and Vans. Dress shoes are a little harder but there is so much synthetic stuff out there even those are pretty readily available. Unfortunately, many of the readily available vegan dress shoes out there are the super cheap shoes that one might find at discount stores, but high end vegan shoes are also available for those who want to spend the money.

http://www.mooshoes.com/men-s-shoes/oxfords-lace-up-and-loafers.html


Anyway, hope that's informative and I hope it doesn't come across as preachy or as though I'm offended. I took these questions as sincere questions and did my best to answer them.

[Winton Applegate]

wine for instance is often filtered over fish bladders
Ok
to heck with wine. Yeuck !
Nice fresh fish bladers I'm sure.
Most wine gives me a head ache any way. More and more it is less and less worth it.
"A marvolous vintage with a finish that reminds me of . . . throbbing head pain."

[Chris Griggs]

Ok
to heck with wine. Yeuck !
Nice fresh fish bladers I'm sure.


Well, its the swim bladder not the urinary bladder (do fish even have those), and technically its not the whole bladder but a substance called Isinglass obtained from the swim bladder. So not that yucky (unless of course your a vegan).

Fortunately, some lovely people created this website that makes it a lot easier to identify which wines/beers/spirits are made without the use of fish or other animal product.

http://www.barnivore.com/

...so I can continue to drink heavily!

[Winton Applegate]

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/images/misc/quote_icon.png Originally Posted by Pat Barry http://www.sawmillcreek.org/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=2365335#post2365335)
What if the cow died from old age? Is that a problem to vegans?

I love questions like that . Going from biology class to government class I used to attempt to apply what I learned in school from one class in another.
Often the result as a deadly silent class room, something even the teachers could not achieve (perhaps I missed my calling and should have been a school teacher ( I leave that for you dear reader to judge)).

Any way here goes:
Is it ok to take said flesh off cow if cow died of natural causes ?
It has been noted in this forum by David W. and others, not by me, that one of the prize strops is human flesh properly prepared.
It has been again stated here palm stropping is well worth doing.
Your Aunt Matilda has just died.
Humans are part of the animal kingdom.
Is it cool to . . .
Well back in the day I would have been more straight forward and asked if one then . . .
I don't want to further add too much fan to the hurricane that I may be slightly bent but . . .
I think you can see where that was rapidly going.
A vegan and many others may feel that it is not right to dismember any living creature and all should be respected equally after death.
Of coarse a cheetah or mountain lion, which I have seen the latter walk through our yard here, might feel differently but again would make no distinction between cow, rabbit or human. As long as it didn't fight back too much it would smack down any one of them with relish.

[Chris Griggs]

"make sure mdf is vegan" that's a request I've yet to hear from a client :) but never say never!

I wouldn't worry about it. I have no reason to believe that regular mdf isn't vegan, I just don't know for sure and am often surprised by what has animal products in it.

Even better, if regular mdf is vegan and you ever have a client who asks for special vegan mdf who doesn't know that, you can just use regular mdf and then charge them extra for it :)

[Brian Holcombe]

If a mouse dies in the woods and it's nutriets are absorbed by a tree, then that tree is cut and used as lumber and the dust is turned into MDF.....:p

[paul cottingham]

Most espousals have impurities and escape clauses. I'm a vegetarian and eat no meat or fish. We get our eggs from our own well-cared for hens, but I do eat dairy and wear a leather belt and shoes. Yet, I refuse to buy a leather strop. Good intentions, poor implementation.

I know a couple vegetarians and I think a vegan, who chose to believe bacon is a kind of vegetable.
No lie.

[Winton Applegate]

I know a couple vegetarians and I think a vegan, who chose to believe bacon is a kind of vegetable.

I think you may have set a new high water mark for most bizarre sentence in the forum.
And found a few clients for Derek as a bonus.

[Winton Applegate]

If a mouse ______ in the woods . . .
For a second I thought that was going to be like that old question : If a tree falls in the woods and there is no one there to hear it does it make a sound.

Connoisseurs of the best MDF always base their selection on many factors of the terroir; one of the factors figuring prominently IS local mouse species .:p

[Pat Barry]

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/images/misc/quote_icon.png Originally Posted by Pat Barry http://www.sawmillcreek.org/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=2365335#post2365335)
What if the cow died from old age? Is that a problem to vegans?

I love questions like that . Going from biology class to government class I used to attempt to apply what I learned in school from one class in another.
Often the result as a deadly silent class room, something even the teachers could not achieve (perhaps I missed my calling and should have been a school teacher ( I leave that for you dear reader to judge)).

Any way here goes:
Is it ok to take said flesh off cow if cow died of natural causes ?
It has been noted in this forum by David W. and others, not by me, that one of the prize strops is human flesh properly prepared.
It has been again stated here palm stropping is well worth doing.
Your Aunt Matilda has just died.
Humans are part of the animal kingdom.
Is it cool to . . .
Well back in the day I would have been more straight forward and asked if one then . . .
I don't want to further add too much fan to the hurricane that I may be slightly bent but . . .
I think you can see where that was rapidly going.
A vegan and many others may feel that it is not right to dismember any living creature and all should be respected equally after death.
Of coarse a cheetah or mountain lion, which I have seen the latter walk through our yard here, might feel differently but again would make no distinction between cow, rabbit or human. As long as it didn't fight back too much it would smack down any one of them with relish.
Using Aunt Matilda sounds like something Ed Gein would have done had he been a woodworker.
Using a deceased animal carcass doesn't seem disrespectful to me, in fact using the resource that is available instead of just letting it waste away seems much more in tune with appreciating and celebrating life.
As far as stropping though, using that super sharp chisel in the palm of you hand seems ludicrous, I strop on my blue jeans pant leg.

[Brian Holcombe]

Palm stropping.....lol

[george wilson]

Nothing wrong with wool. Sheep are not killed to produce wool. They have to be shorn for their own comfort anyway.

The palm is considered the ultimate strop.

[Brian Holcombe]

The palm is considered the ultimate strop.

Indeed, and for some it's the only option.

[Noah Wagener]

Roosevelt Grooming sells a faux leather strop. A guy named Tony Miller may as well. David and David (not the 90's one hit pop duo but Misters Barnett and Weaver) have written abount using a stone called Jasper as a strop. Well they might not call it that but it sounds like it can bend a wire edge back and forth without lengthening it and subtly polish.