I’m very new to woodworking and I’m focusing on learning how to use hand tools. I’m slowly acquiring more tools and setting up my workshop, but I just know that there will be something super useful that I haven’t thought about, and won’t realise that I need it until I actually need it.
What items can you just not live without in your shop?
Diamond stones for me. I tried the sandpaper on glass method for quite a while and had no idea what I was missing until I got a set of quality diamond stones. Along with it I strop using a strip of denim with green compound.
A denim strop is a new one on me. How does it compare to leather?
To be honest I’ve never used a leather strop. I discovered this site when I was learning to sharpen knives. The guy behind the site had access to an electron microscope and used it to test different methods. He found that a loose strip of denim (fixed on one end and held in the hand with the other) with stropping compound worked better than a leather strop. I think for straight razors he added a step after with either dry denim or diamond spray. I figured if it was good enough for this guy it’s good enough for me.
I can say the denim works better than stropping compound on a flat wood board.
I use denim to keep disposable razors sharper longer based on some random thing I read… never even thought to bring some out to the shop for stropping. Good tip.