Leather Honing Strop

Great value for money at only £7, top quality leather, video instructionals and compound. What’s not to love? Does a cracking job! 😉👍🏻

Seems to work, but takes a bit of effort to load the compound on the strop, but produces a nice polished edge after a few tries. Will probably buy more compound later to get a good layer on the strop. Nice size and easy to use.

If you're serious about getting your knives sharp, then whatever method you use to sharpen (and depending on the knife & how much time I have I've used them all) you need this last, often neglected step. Stropping is the last stage of sharpening and actually smooths the cutting surface to reduce resistance to the blade. This 'set' (it's only two items) is really cheap, but it works really well. I'd recommend fixing the leather strop to a flat rigid surface. I 3D printed a base and clamps to hold the strop in place, but sticking it to a flat piece of wood would work just as well. The abrasive compound applies like a crayon to the strop and then you just stroke the cutting edge of the blade along it a couple of dozen times. Incidentally, a few people have complained about a 'petrol' smell, that's the cutting compound, the smell does become pretty concentrated in the bag but give it a couple of hours and it will disperse. I tested this with four knives, an already sharp pocket knife and three kitchen knives that I sharpened with a decent adjustable pull-through sharpener (two were blunt, one was already sharp & just needed 'topping off') then stroped and the results were fantastic. The two blunter knives had only had a quick sharpen, I'll do them properly when I have time, but were sharp enough to slice a sheet of paper held by one corner. The two knives that were decently sharp before stroping were refined to a razor edge. My cheap but much loved (and always sharp) Asian cleaver literally shaved hair off my arm. If you have a knife that is already sharp, this is a cheap solution to keep it sharp, but you do need to use it frequently, if you already have a decent knife sharpener of any type, this will take it to the next level, if you have blunt knives and no way of sharpening them, this isn't going to fix that by itself (unless you want to put a LOT of time into it), buy a decent sharpener AND this strop.

Brilliant for the price, works exactly as expected.

rock hard and near impossible to apply compound as some other reviews say. the leather is fine and working well with another brands compound

Exactly what I needed.

nice piece of leather complete with polish compound

Great for clearing an argument with the missus. When she gets in a mood I just put this on her head and say "You have a strop on again" she can't help but laugh - air cleared.. :) Good bit of kit though to be serious.