I left the only one I had ever used at my dad's place years ago.

Make some recommendations

This one, from Ricky Bobby.

That's one of the finest knives I've ever held in my hands. You are a fortunate man to have it!

Here's a good one from a great vendor to deal with, but "IMO" unless you have a convex ground blade a good steel will serve you better.
There's some good info on sharpening the different grinds (flat vs convex) here too.

http://www.knivesshipfree.com/index.php?cPath=637_638

Course,,, it's not rocket science to simply make one, and a whole lot cheaper.


And another one I made by simply glueing a scrap of leather to the box my sharpening stone lives in.

My bad, I miss read your title.

I use and like this one:

http://woodcarvers.com/razorsharp.htm

It comes with honing compounds too. but I rarely use anything more than the Green micro fine honing compound.

Vince was talking about makeing some. I like mine 18 inch long plus the handle. I use one a lot more than a diamond. I put 6000grit diamond paste on mine.

I make my own,use a wood paint stirrer and glue some leather to it,cheap enough tomake can have more than one honing compound set-up.

I've got this one and it's great:

http://www.jreindustries.com/strops.htm

You'll need extra compound pretty quick though.

Thanks guys that helped

Do you use plain leather at all? I remember my barber, from many years ago, just using a plain leather strop to touch up his razor.

I've never made them,but have a few a buddy made for me. Looks like thick bridle leather,to me. Backed by a hardwood ,flat backing,and apply compound

Most of the custom & production knives I use,get stropped for edge maintanace ,more than they see a bench stone

I'm with Vince. I make 'em for myself and it's basically nothing but saddle leather, which I have on hand anyway for making sheaths. I simply take a decent piece of hardwood or oak plywood and glue down a strip of saddle leather about 2" wide and coat with compound.

Dale

If that's what you use to sharpen the knives you send out you must be doing something right......

I'll have to practice for years to achieve that level of sharpness.

George

What are the advantages of backing the strop with wood vs. a strop that is hooked to the wall at one end and is not backed by anything?

I normally use paper, or cardboard wheels for stropping, but recently I wanted to try hand stropping, mainly because of what I had read on these forums.

I made a strop by attaching a piece of leather to a wood board, then proceeded to, first, sharpen the knife on a fine stone. I got it pretty sharp, then stropped it on bare leather.

The steel was 154CM at Rc61, and the bare leather did not do much for it. Next, I put Green Chrome Compound on the strop. I used the green compound because that is what I use for my final finish on my blades.

Hand stropping with the green rouge didn't help much, either. One problem was that after using the stone, I left a tiny burr on the edge, and tried stropping it off. The blade felt sharp, but would not slice paper very well. What I was feeling was the burr, and the green rouge was not taking the burr off.

I next tried using some grey compound, which is more coarse than the green, and it removed the burr and the blade got really sharp.

This is just my opinion, but plain leather or even leather with fine compound, such as green chrome does not work all that good on high hardness blades.

I know that razors that barbers use will get extremely sharp, but I don't know how hard the steel is. The barber I used to use had a plain leather strop, but he also had a strop that he used some type of compound on, for when the razor got too dull for the plain leather to restore the edge.

So we hear your methods & the variables in the equation.
But,what knives ?
The blades I've stropped that I could not improve the sharpened edge,with a strop,were ground too thick at the edge.Then re sharpening,re profiling the edge,was necessary

"But,what knives ?"

Knife blades in the high Rc 50s and low 60s (Rc 61-62)

It was not that they were too thick at the edge. It was that the rouge was not coarse enough to take the wire edge off the edge.

I have found that if the knife is sharpened correctly, there will be an extremely sharp edge under the burr. Stropping of some type or another is needed to take this burr off.

It can also be taken off with a very fine stone, then stropped for a very sharp edge.

What I was getting at is that the high hardness blades made from a wear resistant steel need to have a strop and compound hard enough and course enough to abrade the steel.

This type of sharpening, or re-sharpening, would be best would be best described as restoring the edge. The trick is to not let it get too dull and worn to begin with, that you don't have to re-profile the edge.

I agree with this . I sometimes will use a black Arkansas razor hone as the final strop