Using Veritas Green Honing Compound

[steve swantee]

Hello all, I was at my local Lee Valley store yesterday and I decided to pick up a bar of their honing compound to try. I have some thick leather I plan to glue to a peice of MDF as a strop. It seems that I read somewhere that it was necessary to rub something else on the strop to help spread the compound and keep it from clumping up (???), but I don't recall what it was, or where I read it. Have you had this experience? If so, what are you using?

Steve

[Brent Smith]

Hi Steve,

I use mineral oil, but I'm sure there are many alternatives.

[mike holden]

You can just scribble it onto the leather like using a crayon, but, a few drops of oil wil let it spread and adhere to the leather better.
I used to just scribble till I read of the oil trick, now I use 2-3 drops of oil when refreshing the abrasive. Dont put too much oil on or it will make a mess - less is more.
Mike

[steve swantee]

Thanks for the tips. As soon as I get a chance to make up my strop I'll give it a try.

Steve

[Eddie Darby]

Steve, I would just try it on the MDF without any leather. It will work better.

Using leather as a strop causes the sharp edges to be rounded over which is what happens when things start to dull, and need to be sharpened in the first place.

LV use to sell Neatsfoot Oil for leather strops. Tormek recommend mineral oil for their leather strop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neatsfoot_oil

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=&p=33016&cat=1,43072

LV recommend using Diamond Paste on MDF with no leather.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=58754&cat=1,43072

[Richard Jones]

Steve, I would just try it on the MDF without any leather. It will work better.

Using leather as a strop causes the sharp edges to be rounded over which is what happens when things start to dull, and need to be sharpened in the first place.


Ditto, just try the MDF without the leather............

Rich

[Jeff Farris]

What causes rounding over is having the bevel too high relative to the stropping wheel. Doesn't matter whether it is leather, MDF, paper or any other substrate -- if the angle is off, you're going to round over. Very soft leather can wrap around the edge -- but then you have a combination of wrong angle and too much pressure. My experience is that leather does a much better job of holding the compound than just about anything else out there. A thin lamination of leather bonded to a firm, perfectly round wheel has proven through many exhaustive tests at Tormek to be the most satisfactory option.

[Brent Smith]

I've used both MDF and leather. For my money, I get a better edge on leather. As Jeff said, it's in the angle you hold the tool at.

[steve swantee]

I tried it on mdf and on the leather strop I made, and like Brent, I think I prefer the leather. The Lie-Nielsen plane iron I stropped on it took a great edge, a bit better than I was getting on the waterstones alone, and renewing that edge will be less of a PITA than dragging out the waterstones every time. Thanks for sharing all your tips.

Steve

[Michael Faurot]

A couple months ago a friend asked me to help him install a new garbage disposal. When we were finished, I asked if I could have the old disposal motor. Turned out the only thing wrong with the old disposal motor was that it just had a piece of plastic stuck inside.

So I disassembled the thing, cleaned it up, added a few new bits of hardware and turned it into a horizontal power strop:
94032

I use this with some of the same Lee Valley green honing compound and can get a mirror polish on my plane blades, chisels and turning tools. Plus it makes them all really sharp.

When I started making this, I originally intended to mount it so the wheel would be vertical (like on a regular grinder), but during the initial disassembly, I noticed that the bearings for the motor probably wouldn't take to that orientation, so I decided to keep the motor vertical and make my strop horizontal. What I've discovered, is there's a few advantages to having the wheel be horizontal:


The backs of chisels and plane blades can be polished/stropped.
It's easier to accommodate wide plane blades on a horizontal wheel. To do the whole thickness of a 2-1/4" wide blade, it would be necessary to make a vertical wheel about 2-1/2" to 3" thick.
Since the wheel is horizontal, it's possible to strop at different speeds. Slower toward the center, faster towards the outside.

There are a couple of quirks to it though:


When polishing the back of plane blades. I have to be sure to keep a solid grip on it. If I don't, it'll take the blade and fling it. Fortunately it flings it away from me.
Stropping will only work for blades that have no handles, or the handles are vertically oriented (like on a chisel). Thus it's not possible to hone a kitchen knife with it, because it's only possible to do one side of the blade. One way around that would be to mount leather to both sides of the horizontal wheel.

Since I've put this device together, I find it's now a very quick and painless operation to touch up chisels and plane blades. It may not be an entirely Neanderthal way to strop, but it makes it really easy to keep my tools sharp.