BACHER Premium Leather Strop for Knife Set with 4 x 7g Polishing Paste. Paddle Handle Made of Hardwood, Covered 1/8 Inch Thick Cowhide Tanned

STROPPING, NOT GRINDING: Sharpening on a stone leaves a burr - a fragile wire edge that folds over on the first cut, which is why a knife feels keen for a day and then stops biting. A leather strop barely cuts steel: it aligns and polishes that edge, so the blade keeps its metal and the bevel comes up clean and mirror-bright. Ten to twenty light passes after your finest stone, and the edge holds longer between sharpenings. Because the wear is a fraction of what a stone takes off, you can strop a kitchen knife every week for years without shortening its life. 3 MM BARK-TANNED HIDE: Full-grain cowhide tanned with tree bark in the Podhale region of southern Poland to a recipe used there since the 17th century, and a full 3 mm (1/8 in) thick. Thickness decides the result: thin, soft hide sinks under the blade and rounds the very apex you are trying to refine. The paddle is 20 mm of solid Carpathian beech (Fagus sylvatica) from FSC-certified forests, licence FSC C170599, so the surface stays dead flat instead of flexing. Total 320 x 60 mm with a 206 x 56 mm working face - a chef's knife crosses it in one stroke. Every 300-500 sharpening jobs you can sand the face back to bare leather and load it again. CHISELS AND PLANE IRONS: The 56 mm working face takes a plane iron or a wide bench chisel flat, so the whole bevel meets the leather instead of one corner of it. The same strop then handles mortice chisels, carving gouges and V-tools, marking knives, whittling knives, kitchen and chef's knives, pocket, hunting and bushcraft blades, scissors, and straight razors for wet shaving. The paddle shape and the drilled handle let you hold it up in the air while you follow the curve of a gouge, or hang it over the bench when you are done. READY IN ONE MINUTE: Spread a compound on the hide with one of the five wooden applicators supplied. About 1 g covers one side, so a 7 g pot gives roughly seven coats per side, and it only needs redoing every 30-50 sharpening jobs. Most people put White 5000 on the rough side and Green 8000 on the smooth side, then keep one side bare for the last few strokes. Pull the blade backwards, spine first, under light pressure, at the same angle you sharpened at or a fraction shallower. A step-by-step eBook guide comes with the set (QR code on the box), and two working sides give you a coarse-to-fine sequence without swapping tools. FOUR GRITS PLUS BALM: Four 7 g Bacher honing compounds are included - Red approx. 2000, White approx. 5000, Green approx. 8000, Black approx. 12000 - so you work down through the grits instead of jumping straight to one polishing paste. Every one of them carries lanolin and beeswax: the pastes are not only abrasive, they nourish and soften the hide at every stropping and keep it from drying out and cracking. Also in the box: a 7 g softening balm, the same care in concentrated form, and once every 1-2 years is enough even if the strop has sat unused. Everything arrives in a printed presentation box - an easy gift for a cook or a carver. Handmade in Poland.