So I got to play around with my new balsa Strops finally over the weekend with ken Schwartz's, .125 cbn spray on it. I have been advised to use it while it is moist because it will be more effective that way. The problem I ran into was that it did not seem to do anything.... No polishing (at least, it did not seem so because there was no "blackening" of the strop. I also waited until it was dry and tried again to no avail. I also tried on the same spray on my kangaroo Strops... Same thing. I am kind of baffled as to what's going on. I didn't try any of my diamond spra .... I just remember my weps pasted Strops blackening right up after a short period of use.

Anyway, I'm gonna have to play around with this more to figure out what's going on. The edge wasn't as "sharp" as I wanted it either, even though it would semi treetop hair.

razoredgeknives wrote:


This might be a really dumb question but I guess it can't hurt...You are shaking the spray first before applying? Seems the diamonds settle out after sitting.

yeah, sorry i forgot to add that.... yeah i shook it really well and turned it upside down before i sprayed just to check to see if everything was mixed in... =) thanks for the question tho!!

I have only used leather with medium grit pastes. I don't claim to have experience here. I have read that people use the very fine diamond spray with nano cloth as the nano has the finest pores compared to leather or balsa. The question I have, but haven't found an answer is what size are the pores of balsa? I.e. if the diamonds are a certain smallness will they sink into the pores and have no/little affect?

The other question I have is what do people with both balsa and leather use the balsa for? Relative to the leather, do you use finer or coarser grits pastes?

My first post and could be a dumb one. For a spray bottle, usually the first 1 to 3 sprays are blank - until particles in carrier are all the way at the top of the uptake tube. I usually open the sprayer, drain the clear-oil/water, put back then spray away. iirc - balsa grain gap is around 0.1-0.3um but there are plenty of non-gap surface, so the strop should be blacken with use (if abrasives are present).

Geocyclist wrote:


I don't use balsa for my really small micron stuff but on a 5 and 3.5 I can tell you that I really like it. I used leather for a long time and it works but if you have a slightly rolled edge the balsa cuts your touch up time by a lot. Both of them polish differently also if you check out Clays posts on abrasion and burnishing you can see the difference in his magnified pictures. He bounces back and forth between multiple strops so it is pretty educational.

When I bought some 0.25 micron spray from WEPS, Kay warned me not to use it on balsa, because the crevices in the balsa were about the same size. I'm not sure whether that is a really good argument: not all of the diamonds will end up in the crevices; many will be half-way, on top of "hills", etc.

But since Clay had such great results with this spray on roo leather, I started doing that as well. I can assure you it works. And Ken Schwartz stropping sprays are among the most highly regarded in the market, so that cannot be the cause.

It's pretty easy to see whether there are particles present in the water you spritz. My diamond stuff looks like mud .

This is confusing, as a new user of strops, and just a beginner in sharpening my own knifes
to this level. I have concerns, I do not want to contaminate my strops, and not sure which
compound works best on what material.
While I do not have all of these to try, if I were to setup a list would be;
Basic Leather strops in 5 and 3.5, 1. and .5 Diamond paste.
Balsa strop 1 and .5 paste.
Roo strops .25 and .125 and .1 spray
Nano Cloth .05 and .025 spray.

Am I way out in Left field on this list?
Most of my strops are new so would like to get off to a good start.
Also can you clean the leather and roo strops if you switch compounds?

Thanks everyone for the input... I will experiment around and see if I can figure what's going on. Maybe I didn't get enough of the CBN particles on the balsa, or else it is as mark states below...

mark76 wrote:


After reviewing some more images, it actually does appear that the CBN on the Kangaroo strops works quite effectively... will be looking into it more =)

JamesBell wrote:


I don't have all these, but this sounds reasonable to me.

I've had good luck cleaning other leather strops with no pumice waterless hand cleaner, but at the micron level of some of these compounds, I'm not sure I would switch compounds on the same strop, even after cleaning.