Garos Goods GGBE3-BRK Bolo Edge Paddle Strop Knife

I recommend this for survival knives but not for straight razors. I was able to get my Cold Steel San Mai III survival knife razor sharp and was able to shave my hair with it. I was amazed and excited since that was my first time ever making a blade razor sharp, but I won't sharpen my straight razor with it due to the leather being indented/uneven on some parts of the surface. I noticed another reviewer mentioned the same thing before I bought it and I thought it might be a fluke just for him, but mine came the same way. That's OK though. I like the strop and I received a belt-style strop with my straight razor so I'll just sharpen my blades on different strops.Other than that, this is a good product.

In the picture looks good but having it in my hands feels cheap

Just received this product in the mail today. I'm pretty happy with this strop. I've tried every sharpening method known to man and I was never happy with either the effort or results from any of them. This is the second strop I've purchased and let me tell you, this is the only way to go. The leather is good quality and the handle and base are quite sturdy. The previous strop block I purchased already had the compound added to the leather. I was new to the whole strop method so I went with that type of product. This piece comes bare, but they give you two compound blocks. The grey is course (used for small defects and "butter knife dull" applications), and the green is fine. If your knife is new and you just want to maintain the edge or even get it razor sharp, the green is all you'll need. You apply the compound like you're coloring, using a crayon. Very easy and no need to be perfect. Ideally you want all the leather covered and the same density, but if you miss a spot or have some areas covered better than others, no big deal. You will notice if one area seems to sharpen better than another, at which point you just start coloring again and soon the thing will be even all over. You'll notice a grey film start to appear. That's a very small amount of material coming off the knife. Two or three drops of olive oil on the strop and a paper towel will take it right off. Remember, you're taking a little compound off with the metal film when you use the paper towel so a little more coloring may be needed after. Don't use too much oil or get too aggressive with the towel and you won't have to refresh the block very often. My everyday carry knife hadn't been sharpened in weeks. I wanted to wait for the new block to come. After about 3 minutes of sharpening with only the green it was cutting note paper nicely. 3 or 4 more minutes and I was able to (literally) shave hair off my arm with very little pressure. That's a win. There are several other compounds available that I haven't had the chance to try yet, but honestly the green compound that comes with this piece covers 90% of my sharpening needs and the grey fixes the heavily abused blades. Not a bad kit and reasonably priced.

You wouldn't think it's hard to glue two pieces of leather to a plastic board, but apparently it is difficult for some people. Leather on both sides of the strop was unglued and very loose. Leather on both sides of the strop overhung the plastic board by 1/4" or so. I glued it back down and trimmed it to fit, but I shouldn't have had to do that. I'm not returning it, since, once fixed it will serve its purpose... but come on. The supplied stropping compound is fine.

Agree with Huff and Vinny V. One side smooth and even and other was high / lows. Did not think about sanding the rough side. Will do this and should be good to go. Again had an old knife and blade came back better. Still needs some work. Thanks.

This does a great job, but as others have noted, it's not completely flat and will need some work before it's perfect. It really does put a razors edge onto my blade. I'm very happy with this.

Looked promising - I got this to stop a straight razor using Dovo red/black paste. After getting the stop all covered, I began stropping, but then realized the blade does not fully contact the leather because it has high and low spots (it appears to be split leather, and not the top grain). I wouldn't care about them using split grain if it was flat, but the result is that I need to turn my razor and stop this way and that to properly get the whole blade.

I've never owned a leather strop as of an exception recently I had never heard of one. That being said, I wanted my blades razor sharp so I gave it a shot. It works really well. The main thing I love about this is the size (plenty of working surface). After using a 400/1000 grit stone I could tell my knives were sharp but after 10 passes per side of the blade and each side of the strop they were razor sharp. I had a couple cheap (<20$) blades that I tried and they got sharp but never razor sharp. Worked well on my skinning knives as well. I can't wait to try them out.