1" x 30" SURGI-SHARP Leather Belt & Abrasive Stick

This is a great leather strop. All my wood carving knives are now razor sharp and a true difference from stropping manually. Quick to attach to my 1" x 30" sander. Rubbed green compound (comes with white) on the belt WITHOUT the power on. Once done, flipped the switch and stropped away. Will purchase again if this one should break.

update nov 2013:The leather strop works very well. With the cork belts, the change in radius when used without backing is too severe, and just dulls my knives, also the cork sharpens using the high points but my grit gathers in the crevices, and is wasted, not being used to sharpen my knives. Get this leather belt for knife sharpening.old review from june 2013:Leather has a few properties. If you stretch it, it will stay stretched, so take it off after sharpening your blades so that the leather stays soft and supple.If you forgot (Like I did) then get the leather a bit damp, and it will shrink a bit.The first few times you put the strop on, it is a tight fit, but by the third time, it has loosened up a bit.I just re-profiled a kitchen knife I had with VG10. The grits I used were:80 grit Harbor Freight zirconium (on the flat)Then from SuperGrit a 220 grit (on the flat), then a 600 grit(on the flat), then a 9 micron convex (about 2000 grit) then a this strop with about 1/2 gram of 1 micron diamond paste on the smooth side of the surgisharp with convex.With the 9 micron, I could cut through paper but it would occasionally catch and tear.With the surgisharp and 1 micron diamond paste, it polished the edge very nicely, and gave me an edge that would cut the paper without snags anywhere along the blade when I was done. After my first pass though I found a 6 inch section that I missed that needed a second pass.I tried to shortcut to this with a different blade that I did not go through the stages with, and that was just a waste of materials. (my dull edge got shiny).You need a stropping compound. I used diamond paste, you can get this in a syringe or paste. I got it in a paste, put it on the blade, then rubbed the blade on the strop, you don't need to saturate the strop, just put on enough till you get that cutting metal sound.Where the leather laps together is very nicely joined with a tapered joint. It looks like they further ground down the leather on both sides of the joint to make sure that it was not a high point, which fits my needs quite nicely.It you want an alternative, look up cork belts at knife making supply companies without a grit applied. I have a few of those too that I have not used as they need to be broken in, which is a messy process.I have sharpened 3 new knives (in a set) with this, and touched up one knife, mostly because I spent about 2 hours per blade with stones last fall, and the other blades were either low quality, or not dull yet.BTW: from 80 grit to 1 micron was less than 5 minutes, and most of that was trying to figure out how to get the belts off the sander. They all went on easily enough, I ended up putting the safety guards in the box along with the tray table, and going freehand.Oh yeah, if you are using a good hard steel, aluminum oxide (Rouge) may not be hard enough, and you may need to use a different grit material.Apparently some people use these belts with the diamond grit to polish crystal or quartz watch faces, though I can't remember the grits they use.REMEMBER BELT GOES AWAY FROM THE BLADE.Best of luck,-Michael

Like many others I bought the Harbor Freight Tools 1"X30" belt sander (actually 2) + 1"X30" SURGI-SHARP Leather Belt & Abrasive Stick + 1"X30" Belt Sander Paper, Aluminum Oxide Sanding Belt Assortment,2 each of 80 120 180 240 320 400 600 800 1000 Grits,18 Pack (1"x30") Sold by: SHUTTLE GENIUS. Before purchasing the Harbor Freight Tools belt sander and the SURGI-SHARP Leather Belt, I read as many online reviews and watched as many YouTube Videos as I could find. There are a few modifications you can make to the belt sander to make your life easier. On the belt sander if you loosen auto-tension/ tracking pulley bolt and nut on the belt sander the SURGI-SHARP Leather Belt will go on without a glitch (smooth side on the pulleys). Also, I made sure the SURGI-SHARP Leather Belt glue joint is running away in the direction of travel. I marked the SURGI-SHARP Leather Belt with an arrow using an ink pen to show the direction of the belt travel. You sharpen your knife with the abrasive with the cutting blade facing the top of the sander and to hone you would hone with your cutting blade facing the opposite direction facing the base of the sander. I honed six of my wood carving knives and the blades I would say appeared sharper than my usual flat hone jobs. I have arthritis in my hands and using these tools will be a huge relief to hand honing my wood carving knives. I would recommend 1"X30" SURGI-SHARP Leather Belt. As far as the white compound goes, after opening the package and set it down somewhere; it will show up one day. I only use green or yellow compound for honing anyway so it's no big deal. If SURGI-SHARP would just sell the belt without the white compound I would be just as satisfied.

The media could not be loaded.  I'm not very patient and I don't want to spend a ton of time sharpening my knives. I've got just about every sharpening kit you can buy from the Ken Onion to the Lansky kit. I'm not saying those systems aren't great, but for me putting this belt on my Harbor Freight 1" x 30" belt sander was just what I was looking for - that "surgical sharp" edge on my knives QUICKLY.Pros:Good instructionsSnug fit on my sanderSuper resultsCons:Little tight at first - but with a little stretching it was on without issueWish I would've bought soonerI'm no expert and I don't pretend to be. My process is real simple. 120 grit sandpaper on the Harbor Freight first - about 4 to 6 passes each side (depending on the shape of the knife) then on to the Surgi Sharp Leather Belt for about 4 to 6 more passes. After that I was able to shave the hair off my arm. Not very scientific, but I've struggled to get knifes that sharp with other systems - once again, the patience thing. I don't want to spend a lot of time sharpening - I want to spend more time cutting things with my sharp knife!Highly recommend it!

This leather belt quickly converted my cheap 1x30 belt sander to a power strop. It was really tight at first, to the point that the sander couldn't turn it, but I left it on for a day or so, fiddling with it occasionally, and it eventually relaxed enough to do the job.