I’m carrying on with woodcuts for a while, hacking away at lumps of plywood all day at the studio. It’s important to keep my cutting tools sharp; if I keep hacking when they get blunt, it hurts my wrist. I use a leather slipstrop and a bar of waxy abrasive to keep them sharp. I rub the abrasive wax onto the surface of the strop and then stroke the tools across it a few times to keep them sharp. I generally do it after a dozen or so cuts on plywood, more often for PVC board and less for lino.
There’s a way of stroking the blade across the strop; the gouges have to be rotated across the surface of the strop to make sure that the sharpening is even. The V and flat blades are pulled straight across. It’s much easier to do this instead of having to re-sharpen blunt tools, which needs to be done with a sharpening wheel.
It’s quite a big piece so it’s taking me ages to hack it. I’ve got this far. I’m giving my wrist the weekend off.
scribblah 
All these techniques and tools. Plus amazing artwork at the end. You’re a bundle of talent 🙂
Thank you kind lady 🙂
I had to look twice at the title of your post, cause over here in America, stop is usually spelled STOP, not STROP. Unless of course you have Strop Lights over there to direct traffic. And call everything from bathrooms to what ya sit on by a different name. Didn’t you guys invent the English language? Then why is it so different from American, the language of the USA? Oh well, some things are imponderable.
Love the art work. Now I’m gonna read the rest of your post:)
haha I’ll throw a strop in a minute, then you’ll be sorry lol 🙂
I did one woodcut way back when I was in school. I love the one I did, but don’t think I “would” do it again. 🙂
haha 🙂