I wondered whether anyone has ever experimented with strops or stones that can easily be detached (and remounted) from the paddles.

I just discovered a cheap source of aluminium strips as well as a reasonably cheap source of polishing cloth. So I can easily make a lot of strops. It seems a bit superfluous, however, to permanently mount each strop of its own paddle. So I wondered whether anyone has made detachable stones/strops or has any ideas about this.

I’ve thought of magnetic strops, with magnets in the paddle and in the strop. But that seems quite difficult if you don’t want to increase the thickness of the strops too much. (Which I don’t want; it is nice that the strops have the “correct” thickness, so I don’t have to use an angle cube). A clamping mechanism seems more feasible to me, but I am not sure how.

Any ideas?

rubber band

Good idea, Martin . That's my poor man's strop: paper on a ceramic stone, held in place by a rubber band. Works ok, but I was looking for something more durable.

mark76 wrote:


Hey Mark - I'm pursuing the magnets idea for such a purpose - trying out different strength of neo magnets (right now with Atoma Plates) to see what will hold the stone/strop sufficiently while not providing to much drag as they try to grab the guide rod and will let the stone be removed easily too. Gotta have non-Al backing on your stone/strop though. The magnets recess into the handles so there is no additional thickness in this method.

Trying sticky back sheet magnet too since it can be applied to the handle and the Al backing or directly onto a stone - gotta get sheets where the non-sticky faces will not repel one another for this to work though. This creates two extra layers of thickness under every stone you use so it is consistent. I'm not far enough in the process to report back on any real results so far, hoping to get more work done on it this week - or maybe the following week when I'm away on vacation.

I haven't ever measured the thickness of my various stops, or put the angle cube on them to see about that angle variance. I know that the thickness of the bovine strops varies from sheet to sheet, and also from one location on the sheet to another - but they are pretty pliable so conform to your edge pretty well. Now that you have me thinking on it though, it seems to me that on things like kangaroo and nanocloth where they don't have as much give, - or even polishing tapes and papers if they aren't mounted directly on a WE diamond plate, checking the angle would be a good procedure to follow. I'm gonna need to play with that and see how much angle variance there is. I already re-adjust for each of my shaptons and choseras since they all vary from one another and from the WE plates, so perhaps now I'm gonna start on my strops too

Be interested to hear if anyone is working on other ideas for this...and I'll update on the magnets as I progress

Meat on the grill is calling!