Am I stropping incorrectly?

[Caffeinepirate]

Alright, so this is what has been happening.

I have a $25 "tri-hone" which I sharpen my Benchmade 14205 knife with. The "fine" stone has cracked so I only use the course (arkansas) and medium (ceramic) stones. I use an angle that is as small as possible. I try the paper cut test after using both stones and it is cutting paper. Yay.

But after I strop it only tears the paper.[b/] For a strop I use a leather belt that has been super glued to a block of wood. I don't use any stropping compound on it.

I use the exact same angle on the strop as I do on the stones, and I apply less pressure on the last few strops.

Based on my results, is the stropping actually dulling the edge? Or is it just making it a less toothy and more polished edge so it won't slice the paper as easily?

Aside from upgrading my sharpening system, any suggestions for my methods?

 

[Jason B.]

First thing is, a belt is NOT a proper strop and yes it makes a huge difference. Second, your making too big a jump in grit from stone to strop for the strop to be effective in the right ways. You can try adding compound to your strop but you stones will be more important at this time.

 

[Caffeinepirate]

First thing is, a belt is NOT a proper strop and yes it makes a huge difference. Second, your making too big a jump in grit from stone to strop for the strop to be effective in the right ways. You can try adding compound to your strop but you stones will be more important at this time.

1. Should I not even bother using any kind of strop if I skip the "fine" grit stone?

2. How come the leather belt doesn't work well? I'm asking because I want to learn.

3. In terms of a makeshift strop, would cardboard work?

4. Do I have to put a compound on the strop for it to be effective? If so, would turtle wax car polish work?

 

[Jason B.]

You should still use a strop but you need a finer edge first.

Strop leather goes through a process to bring the silicates to the surface, this is the abrasive in strop leather that makes it work.

You can use leather, balsa wood, MDF, the back of a legal pad, but box cardboard does not work very well.

A bare strop works best after a edge has beed polished to a very fine level (read; hair splitting) this can either be done with expensive finishing stones beyond 10k grit or multiple compounds.

 

[Hard H2O]

I use scrap leather from Tandy for stropping.

I do not think you need "strop" leather.

I use red and white polishing compound on my strops.

I agree that you need to take care of your issue with the fine stone first.

Each step refines the edge.

If balsa wood, MDF, cardboard sork for stropping why would you need a special leather? None of those other materials has been through a "special process".

 

[Lucky Bob]

The question is if you're stropping bare. Adding abrasives overwhelms any naturally abrasive qualities of the material you're using, so pretty much the only important attribute left is stiffness. If you're stropping sans additional abrasives, you're relying on those inherent to the material, in which case rolled/boned leather/horsehide is better.

 

[Caffeinepirate]

Thanks for taking the time to help me with this, guys. Any additional feedback or opinions are appreciated.

I might as well just upgrade my sharpening system because I'm not that good with free hand anyway. That stupid cracked fine grit stone doesn't work well because the crack sometimes catches the blade when I am running it the stone -- you can imagine what that does to my sharpening effort:grumpy:

Knifenut: You said that a bare strop works best when you already have a hair-splitting edge. For me, I always thought the strop helped you get to edge in the first place. What more can a strop do for you if you already have an edge so good that it can whittle hair? I would assume you would have already honed off all the burrs as you slowly switched to finer and finer stone grits. And I imagine the edge would be very polished and not very toothy at all at this point.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

Knifenut: You said that a bare strop works best when you already have a hair-splitting edge. For me, I always thought the strop helped you get to edge in the first place. What more can a strop do for you if you already have an edge so good that it can whittle hair? I would assume you would have already honed off all the burrs as you slowly switched to finer and finer stone grits. And I imagine the edge would be very polished and not very toothy at all at this point.

Deal with the damaged fine stone first. It's all-important for removing and/or straightening out the burr which was likely produced by the coarse & medium stones. The burr, by itself, could produce so-called 'hair-whittling' results. But it'll be inconsistent, such as you've observed after stropping on the belt. The belt will partially move and/or straighten some of the burr, but won't completely get rid of it. A fine grit stone is at it's best in doing that job, in addition to polishing your edge.

Knife steel is an amazing thing. No matter how sharp you think it is now, it can be made mind-bogglingly sharper if you make the steady, orderly progression from coarse to medium to fine to ultrafine to stropping. And even stropping will produce better results when done in a progression (such as stropping with green compound or diamond on leather, followed by stropping on high quality bare leather alone).