STROP Paradise

HI there,

     Every now and then,  a company that sells knife sharpening products will ask me if they can send me a sample and all that they ask in return is that I provide and honest opinion. In most cases, NOT ALL, but in most the products have been very good and I do my absolute best to get the word out.

     I am not interested in selling things myself and I can assure you, if I say that I like something, I do like it, it is something I would use professionally. I don't get any money or anything from the companies and most of the time, all of the time in fact, it is one time thing. They send the products, I test them out and then do my part to socialize the product and then it's all over.

     (Now if a company wanted to make an exclusive deal, i.e. we want you to promote our product only type of thing, it would have to be a very good product indeed but I can't see that happening).

   Recently I was sent a stropping kit from Garrett Wade Tools in the US, Brooklyn to be exact.

Stropping Kit from Garrett Wade Tools

   All the nice man wanted me to do was just try it out..

Strop Kit from Garrett Wade Tools (Doesn't include the dream knife..Takamura)

 
    The stropping kit included this beautiful paddle and two strops, one is felt, the bluish looking one for deburring and the other is a premium leather, in fact it is extremely smooth leather. The really cool thing is that these strops are magnetically attached to the paddle, so you just lift it off and they fit perfectly onto the paddle.   I was extremely impressed with the look and feel of the stropping kit, it is very nicely put together. It came with some green paste (Chromium Oxide) which can be loaded onto the leather of course.

    I was excited to try it out and it just so happened that 15 knives arrived to sharpen. It only took one knife to convince me that it is an exceptional product. I would recommned this to anyone and I will definitely be buying more of the leather "inserts". You don't have to buy the paddle again, you can just get more strops that come on a piece of wood that is stained to the same colour as the paddle and has a magnetic strip on each end, brilliant.

   Now the next time I will order the even higher level of leather, the bridle leather and I can't wait to see what that is like.

  Folks, there is a ton of great products out there, I have already talked about JENDE industries and their great nanocloth and CBN products, there are more of course. I don't get to try everything, not everyone sends me stuff........just the smart ones :)

    Again, Garrett Wade Tools recognized that I may have the opportunity to show people their leather strops and indeed I will do that. If anyone in the Halifax area wants to see and try them out, that is perfectly fine to me. 

 I like the felt strop, in the past I have ruined many many nice strops by nicking them, so with the felt used first, it takes any hits that the knife may give out. Now the damage I have done to strop is mostly just carelessness but I use them very very often. For the average sharpener, these things should last for years if you are careful. 

    Remember, Garrett Wade is not paying me to say these things, in fact, I am sure that they don't even know who I am so my opinion is mine and I am just sharing it.  It matters not to me what people use but since a lot of nice people seem to be visiting my Blog and are clearly interested in sharpening, then this a product that I can very highly recommend. It's fantastic actually, that is after about 30 knives now by the time I finished this. 

   

Thanks for reading my Blog.

Peter Nowlan