A number of questions about edge polishing and strops.

T

thegeek574

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Alrighty, I know that all of you guys over here get a ton of these questions, but i was not finding what i wanted to know.

first of all, strops. I must say that knifenut1013's tutorial on how to make a strop was very helpful, but i have some specific questions. I will not really need to worry about going from a low grit edge to a strop because i am planning on touching my knives up regularly and so they will never really get the chance to get dull. that said, what compound should i use? where can i get it? I have some white. will that be enough? is green necessary? what about red?

As far as the strop goes, I am wondering whether it would be worth it to go with the leather or if a piece of 2000 grit sandpaper rubber cemented on to a board would be fine. it could be taken off later, and have a new sheet put on. is this doable? is leather better, worse, indifferent.......

I have read up on stropping, and so i generally think i know what i will be doing. I am working on containing my inner stupid for this, and i have knives i can practice on, so that is covered. it is now time to get the setup together, sharpie up some knives, and go for it.

To summarize, Strop :thumbup: Compound? color? sandpaper vs leather?

thanks.
 
Sand paper can remove a burr but not polish the edge. For that you need a good learher strop w/ the green rouge .5u . Good luck. DM
 
Here's my setup and some suggestions...

I use the Bark River compounds and I love them (much better than the stuff I bought from Sears). I got a box with both Black (course) and Green compounds. I have three strops, two for the compounds and one bare. This works great for keeping my knives sharp, all the time. If I ever need anything more than that, I just use sandpaper on top of the leather. If I end up using a knife hard one day, the black compound works very well to bring back an edge.

I believe the sandpaper on top of the board would work too, like you mentioned. However, I would think the leather would work a lot better for convex edge. I have used the compounds and leather on a V-edge and it works just fine. The compounds will really fine tune your edge, more so than the 2000 grit sandpaper. Any time I have put a convex edge on a knife, I usually go from around 320 to 2000 and then move on to the compounds.

I am not sure on the other compounds. I have heard of people using white but I have no experience with it.

I really like this system. Its very portable and very customisable (in terms of strops - you can make it any size or shape you want). It also allows me to, like you want, keep a knife sharp all the time. I usually have a mini-strop and some sandpaper (back-up, if something happens to the edge) in a pack on my day to day activities. This is probably over-doing it, but I like it.

knivesshipfree.com has the bark river compounds (last I checked, at least) and the mini-strop (though you could very easily make one).

Hope this helps. I am sure there are many different methods of achieving the same goal :thumbup:
 
What do you sharpen with now/what stone are you finishing with?

When it comes to compounds HA 1 Micron spray is my go-to compound when doing touch-up or for general use. I've moved away from leather in favor of balsa or hardwood strops and have switched to bare horse butt for leather stropping. Hard felt is also something I've started to regularly use, it too is coated with 1 Micron spray and is mainly used after my finishing stone to remove any remaining burr. I also use it as a pre-polisher to my strops because it seems to quickly smooth the surface and lessen the time needed on the wooden strops.

Strops vs paper? That's basically like strops vs stone. You can get paper or stones that will do just as much polishing as a strops but it takes more skill to remove the burr and angle control must be much better. You can use either but the strops is usually easier to finish with because it conforms to the edge and slight changes in angle are not a big deal.

Hard felt followed by horse butt is another finishing technique that works well too.
 
I use paper wheels but i find that, for several reasons, they are kind of annoying to use, i took a big chunk out of the slotted one, and i want to be able to use my hands. just personal preference.
all of my knives are V edges, and i am not interested in putting convexes on them, and so i was thinking that the strop would be the best way to go. i have no idea, however.
 
So will you be switching to stones?

The process leading to the strops is as important as the stropping compound and method you choose.
 
I already kind of referred to this, but I will flesh it out. I, as of yet, do not use my knives in situations where i would chip up the blade, and so all i need is to strop it up every couple of days to keep it really sharp. if i do chip it, the grit wheel of the paper wheels is undamaged and so i could use that. this is strictly for putting a hair-popping edge on my knives.
 
So you will be using the grit wheel then hand stropping? That could take a while unless a coarse compound is used.
 
I guess i could make an extra strop and pick up some black compound/use some 220 grit sandpaper if i ever needed to. all my knives are currently pretty sharp, just not quite to shaving, where i would like them to be.
 
Forum member heavyhanded would probably be better able to help with your questions. He likes to use coarse silicon carbide powder on leather strops and its probably a method you would like. With such a coarse starting grit (grit wheel) its not going to benefit you to hand strops with a finishing compound.
 
you dont need a strop to polish the edge all tho it can give a finer edge, i have polished 2 of my pocket knives to mirror with a translucent Arkansas stone (1 in ats-34 and 1 in 13c26) and have very good results all tho they arent as sharp as they could be i think (thing still go thru paper very well and do remove hair) but thats more or less needs to be an adjustment on my end (if i work them longer they will get sharper)

just a thought =)
 
Sandpaper is still a fixed abrasive, so it will still create a burr. Due to the backing having some give and the grits being adhered to the sheet with resin, the burr will be a lot smaller than one from a stone, but it will still be there. Also, a strop uses free grit that can roll, slide, and tumble, or in the case of bare leather or felt, the fibers/connective tissue have a lot of give (comparatively). This IMHO is why stropping doesn't produce a burr unless you really lean on it. Using 2000 grit paper will essentially produce a microbevel, or it will simply grind away at the edge produced by your wheel, slowly working it down to a 2000 grit (approx 1 micron) edge. I'm not sure what grit your wheel runs at - guessing its about 200. At that speed it probably equates to a 400 grit edge done by hand. The Black Emery compound from Sears works well at that level, and if you wanted to go a bit further you could try the Flexcut Gold which is made for hand stropping for wood carvers. Jumping to a very fine stropping compound (.5 micron chromium oxide) from a lower grinding grit (400 grit silicone carbide) can be done but I'd say it gets extremely challenging to preserve the edge without rounding it over and it does a poor job of burr removal, frequently polishing the burr instead of grinding it off. Using multiple strops I can get a face-shaving (not too comfortable but it'll do it) edge from 400 grit sandpaper followed by stropping on successively finer abrasives, I cannot get there in just one step. If you want the most from one single step following your wheel, I'd recommend a leather strop loaded with black emery, Flexcut gold or perhaps the 6 micron diapaste referred to by Zyhano. I switched over from the crayon-type compounds and now use a range of silicone carbide powders from 120-1200, all on leather strops and really like how they work. I still keep one strop loaded with the .5 green compound, but rarely find a need to use it.
HH
 
Ok, here is what i am hearing. going from the grit wheel to the fine- loaded strop is not going to work. the only possibility that i am seeing would be to go from the grit wheel to a strop loaded with black and then going to a strop loaded with the dia-pastes or whatever i end up using. I frankly do not have the money to get into the DMT stones and such. the strop will already require a bit of scraping, and so getting into 60-70 dollars of stones is out of the question. however, 10-20 dollars of leather is doable, as well as another 30 bucks of pastes spread out over a while. I do not need a hair whittler, just a arm-shaver.
 
Don't rule out the sandpaper. Even if you start with the wheel, and want to finish with your strop & compound of preference, a few dollars' worth of sandpaper can bridge the gap easily. It was mentioned earlier, that the wheel might produce something like a 400 grit edge. From there, sandpaper in grits 600/800/1000/1200/1500/2000 are all available (Woodcraft carries this full range, in the Norton brand). I stocked up on 'em recently, at a cost of about a dollar per sheet. In the medium to fine grit range (400 and up), the sandpaper will last a good long time. At the finer grits especially, they'll actually produce a better finish with more use. The silicon carbide abrasive will 'fracture' into smaller, but still very aggressive cutters. Use it on hard backing if you prefer, or it also works very well on leather backing. The amount of convex produced on the edge can be minimized by adjusting the thickness/firmness of your backing, as well as by keeping pressure as light as possible, and the angle consistent. Regarding burrs, they're virtually non-existant at the finer grits (1000+), IF you focus on steadily reducing pressure as you progress through the grit stages.

My habits lately, have been to touch up with 1000/2000 grit paper, followed by stropping on leather loaded with Simichrome polish, followed by stropping on bare leather. I'm very happy with the results, and becoming even more so, as my skills gradually improve.

You have LOTS of options, all of which can produce excellent results (you're getting a ton of good advice in this thread, from some very knowledgable people). It mostly comes down to becoming proficient at whichever method you choose to focus on, with whichever tools you feel comfortable using.
 
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For 20 bucks worth of wet/dry sandpaper from an automotive store and some flat pieces of wood, glass, thick plexiglass or other flat surface to glue it to, you could sharpen your knife to just about any level you'd care to hit. If you're going with the grit wheel because you like the edge it gives you, then stropping on black emery or other large grit compound is a good way to go. Otherwise you could just work your way up to 1000-1200 grit sandpaper (using a stropping motion) and strop it on leather with white compound from Sears or some Flexcut gold from a woodworking supply store. For that matter you could go up to 2000 grit sandpaper and then you'll see some real improvement from the green compound (though this is still at the low end of best practices). Cheap leather can be made into a real nice strop, no need to pay the long dollar. Some stiff scraps from a craft store will work, just scuff it up with, what else, some sandpaper. If the stuff is still too soft for your uses than you can rub it down with paraffin or canning wax and melt it into the leather with a hot air gun. Do this for three or four applications and you'll have a nice stiff surface for holding your compound that still has a little give and lets the edge glide like butter.

You could also consider getting a new slotted wheel and sticking with the paper wheels. There's a lot of folks that feel they work better than anything else out there, you're already half way there and it'll be as cheap or cheaper than any of the other options listed.

HH

OwE beat me to it! Saw his post right after I submitted mine.
 
Wow. I suck at this explanation thing. here is a bit more background. I have the paper wheels, and they work, despite the fact that there is a chunk out of one. it is still operation, just not optimal. I am just not getting the edge i want without feeling like i am taking off a ton of metal. besides, i want to do it by hand so that i do not have to get all decked out in the safety gear to put a final edge on a knife every couple of days. I am not just using the grit wheel, it is just the only one that is still in full working order.

All my knives are acceptably sharp with either a used factory-resharpened edge or an used edge with the paper wheels, but i would prefer that they shaved. That is why I want to step it up a notch. I paid less for my entire collection than one small sebenza, and so i do not want to sink too much more into sharpening.

I figured that the strop would be a quick way to touch up my knives and get a really nice edge. I can afford sandpaper, and so i can do what Obsessed suggested. the paper wheel will still do the main sharpening, but it is not optimal for keeping all the knives sharp.

Sorry for the rambling.
 
A leather strop loaded with an abrasive in the range of your finishing grit, whatever that might wind up being, will give good results as a maintenance strategy. Even a strop that's a bit too fine for your edge will work OK, but you'll eventually have to put it back on the wheel to restore the apex of your edge. I find that at the lower grit levels (600 and larger grit) this is lessened considerably. I have a couple of EDU knives that haven't seen a stone or sandpaper for many months now, I just strop them with silicone carbide grit every week or two and they show no signs of needing to put to a fixed abrasive for a touch up.

HH
 
thegeek574 said:
Wow. I suck at this explanation thing. here is a bit more background. I have the paper wheels, and they work, despite the fact that there is a chunk out of one. it is still operation, just not optimal. I am just not getting the edge i want without feeling like i am taking off a ton of metal. besides, i want to do it by hand so that i do not have to get all decked out in the safety gear to put a final edge on a knife every couple of days. I am not just using the grit wheel, it is just the only one that is still in full working order.

All my knives are acceptably sharp with either a used factory-resharpened edge or an used edge with the paper wheels, but i would prefer that they shaved. That is why I want to step it up a notch. I paid less for my entire collection than one small sebenza, and so i do not want to sink too much more into sharpening.

I figured that the strop would be a quick way to touch up my knives and get a really nice edge. I can afford sandpaper, and so i can do what Obsessed suggested. the paper wheel will still do the main sharpening, but it is not optimal for keeping all the knives sharp.

Sorry for the rambling.
Click to expand...

Here's a suggestion. If your mind is geared up for stropping, look at it this way. The sandpaper can be used exactly the same way. I've simply been using a piece of sandpaper wrapped around my strop block (lengthwise, cut to the same width as the block). I don't even glue it in place. I just wrap the ends of the paper around the ends of the block, and slightly underneath it. My habit is to hold my block in one hand, while stropping the knife with the other. I hold the paper in place with my thumb at one end, and my middle finger at the other (my block is cut to length, to accomodate a comfortable grip this way). If you want to use the paper on a bench-sized block (laid on the bench, appropriately), the paper tucked underneath the ends of the block will sufficiently hold it in place (provided the block isn't too long). Otherwise, it can be glued or otherwise stuck in place. Main point is, the motion for using the sandpaper is exactly the same as stropping. Focus on keeping the angle as low as possible, and the pressure light. To get a feel for it, start with a higher grit (1000+) on one of your 'already decent' edges. Make a few light passes, and then inspect and test the edge, to see how it's changed. I've done it this way with a lot of brand new knives (with decent bevels), just to see if my skill/technique is good enough to IMPROVE that edge. The high grit sandpaper, when starting out learning this way, won't do too much damage if your technique is a bit off. But, it'll still give you enough to see a change, one way or the other. Once you get a feel for it, you'll be better prepared to take a step back in grit, to do some heavier work on knives that need it.
 
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