I can get a knife damn sharp with THIS.

I really like the feel of a finely stropped edge. Often all it takes to bring an edge back is to straighten it a bit on a ceramic stick and strop it.

That is why I made this.





1/8 " x 1" thick aluminum and a piece of leather belt that is at least 50 years old. I used Gorilla Glue to hold it on and a belt sander to true it up on the edges.

It weighs around an ounce and it works sweet! I use white stick buffing compound. One loading of compound will do dozens of knives or sharpenings.

Very nice and an excellent way to keep an edge maintained so you don't need heavy sharpening.  The only recommendation I could make would be to cut a few same-sized pieces of various wet-dry sand paper to help hone the blade (my preference with convex edges).  How long is it?

Oh, I forgot to mention that a custom knife I received from Martin Knives included a diamond hone and Ed Martin glued some very dense bubble wrap to the back side and added a strip of 800 grit paper (where I got my idea) to assist with maintaining the edge.  I like the loaded leather strop with the addition of the sandpaper.

ROCK6

I should have been more clear. My travel kit has the sharpener that I linked above the pictures and the new leather strop. The strop is 1.5 oz and the sharpener is 1.6 oz.  3.1 oz isn't terrible for the over all weight of my travel sharpening kit.

I have fine diamond, white ceramic, and a strop now.

For a convex edge I would get some of the dense foam rubber like what is used for weather stripping that has sticky on both sides and stick 600-800 grit to that.

Thanks for clearing up.  I think the aluminum base is a good idea; the steel bar I have that has the diamonds on it is really quite heavy (I actually prefer the lighter DMT diamond hones for better weight).  Good sharpening kit that should handle just about 90% of edge maintenance.  

ROCK6

Good idea.  I usually just use a hank of leather and put it on whatever flat surface I have available.