Daily maintenance: strop or rods?

T

tuffluv

Joined
Feb 24, 2015
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For daily maintenance of an EDC folder, will a leather strop do the same as ceramic rods?

I have a diamond Lansky system for re-profiling and I'm trying to decide if I should simply get a strop or get the Spyderco sharpmaker for maintenance work.
 
Depends on the condition of the edge.

If only a little light cutting was done, then a few passes on the strop is usually enough.

Else, get out the SM.

In other words, get both. ;)
 
tuffluv said:
For daily maintenance of an EDC folder, will a leather strop do the same as ceramic rods?
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With an aggressive compound on it, a strop can do the work of a coarse stone... Without compound, a leather strop can be your finishing step. Up to you how you want to use it. Make two strops, one for a medium compound such as Chromium Oxide, and one to use bare, and you've covered the field for an EDC touch-up.

I have a diamond Lansky system for re-profiling and I'm trying to decide if I should simply get a strop or get the Spyderco sharpmaker for maintenance work.
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Great strops can be virtually free, so why not use them PLUS the Sharpmaker?



Stitchawl
 
I typically use the ultra fine stones on my Sharpmaker but lately I've been playing with my loaded strop. I little care with angle and light pressure and the edge comes back to VERY sharp with a handful of passes on each side. It has taken me a little work to figure out the right pressure and angle. I've been stropping my 240mm kitchen knife with excellent results.
 
a strop should become your best friend!along with a good set of stones,for proper maint.
 
Strop would do good for basic maintenace to pair up with the Lansky. And this will probably be the best route to go.

Or you can buy the diamond Lansky Turnbox and do most of the reprofile work on the Lansky guided setup before moving to the turnbox and reprofiling to that angle (and you can drill in new holes in that or a board to the desire angles you want for more flexibility). Personally I was quite impressed with the little turnbox I bought my girlfriend to maintain her knife and in someways I think I would prefer their diamond turnbox over my sharpmaker with all the rods in some ways. The turnbox will remove more steel, the strop would remove far less and they behave quite differently but both will get the job done in maintaining a sharp knife. Personally I would mount a bare leather strop to the side of the turnbox and put some anti slip pads under it to aid it form moving along with drilling in 15dps holes and just use this to maintain the edge and the Lansky guided to reprofile.
 
I use the rods

A sharpmaker with UF stones is left setup on my workbench and my knives are thinned to around 15 dps so they get a nice microbevel from the SM 40deg (20dps) setting.
A light touch and a bit of soapy water on the stones (in the sink) as you are sharpening will get a nice sharp edge
 
I've thought for a while now that the people that advocate a strop as the only maintenance tool must not cut much with their blades. Sure a strop will bring back an edge that's been dulled a *little*. But once you get to any kind of dullness that you'd really notice in cutting, say, a cardboard box into strips, you're WAY past what a strop can fix. At that point, you need a SharpMaker or other sharpener that can remove a decent (small) amount of steel.

I find strops to be essentially useless for maintaining blades that really see use. If you cut string and paper and other very light materials, the strop will bring the edge back. For harder use, you need a different maintenance tool.

Brian.
 
bgentry said:
I've thought for a while now that the people that advocate a strop as the only maintenance tool must not cut much with their blades. Sure a strop will bring back an edge that's been dulled a *little*. But once you get to any kind of dullness that you'd really notice in cutting, say, a cardboard box into strips, you're WAY past what a strop can fix. At that point, you need a SharpMaker or other sharpener that can remove a decent (small) amount of steel.

I find strops to be essentially useless for maintaining blades that really see use. If you cut string and paper and other very light materials, the strop will bring the edge back. For harder use, you need a different maintenance tool.

Brian.
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+1 :thumbup:

There's no reason to limit maintenance of an edge to only one means; it'll be self-defeating in many cases. Some of my blades do typically get 'light use' on paper & such, and those usually get touched up by stropping; very, very thin blades with acute edges respond easily to that most of the time. As for cutting cardboard & such, just one session of box-shredding will take simpler steels to a truly DULL edge fast, and stropping isn't enough to bring them back. The other thing to consider is how you use your knife & what types of cutting (i.e., slicing/draw-cutting or push-cutting/shaving) you'll be doing. A toothy, coarser edge that works well for kitchen uses or rope-cutting will always be much easier to restore on an appropriately gritty stone that can bring the teeth back in just a few very light strokes. No need to worry about removing too much metal, if judgment about what the edge really needs is sound, and technique is good. Those two factors go a long way in preserving the blade and still getting the edge back to 100% every time it's needed. :)


David
 
bgentry said:
I've thought for a while now that the people that advocate a strop as the only maintenance tool must not cut much with their blades. Sure a strop will bring back an edge that's been dulled a *little*. But once you get to any kind of dullness that you'd really notice in cutting, say, a cardboard box into strips, you're WAY past what a strop can fix. At that point, you need a SharpMaker or other sharpener that can remove a decent (small) amount of steel.

I find strops to be essentially useless for maintaining blades that really see use. If you cut string and paper and other very light materials, the strop will bring the edge back. For harder use, you need a different maintenance tool.

Brian.
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I'd say yes (emphatically) and no (conditional). When it comes to a leather strop, even if you use a relatively coarse abrasive it just cannot generate enough unit pressure to cut deep into the steel. Over a period it will round the edge over, even if it does manage to raise a burr and grind a new edge it cannot maintain geometry unless on a full convex (and even then...).

Once you go into other materials for a backing, its a different ballgame. I guess one has to differentiate between backhoning and stropping and what the criteria are.

http://www.washboardsharpening.com/wear--repair.html
 
HeavyHanded said:
Once you go into other materials for a backing, its a different ballgame. I guess one has to differentiate between backhoning and stropping and what the criteria are.

http://www.washboardsharpening.com/wear--repair.html
Click to expand...

That's a very good point. You can backhone on any abrasive. In fact, Murray Carter shows almost pure back honing when working on high grit waterstones to refine the edge. Those definitely remove metal. Your washboard is a continuing source of interest for me. I've started using a tiny little bit of your demonstrated techniques by doing short scrubbing strokes, but I do this on my DMT plates, and I usually do them edge leading. But still, the idea is the same and I mostly credit you with getting that idea into my mind.

Your washboard is most definitely NOT a strop and apparently is pretty much a complete sharpening system from reprofiling to fairly fine finishing and everything in between. I'll probably buy one eventually. Even though I already have too many sharpening tools. Way too many. Oh well, there are worse things to collect. :)

Brian.
 
Brian,
I hear you about the gear, even now I'm good for some new equipment a couple times a year whether I need it or not! I manage to maintain my tools with so little steel wear that I can seldom justify new knives or choppers anymore but always can rationalize new sharpening tools as I do a small amount of sharpening for $ on the side.

My old CS recon went in the drink a few weeks ago up at Racquette Lake canoeing in rough water. I was almost happy as I could justify a new hard-use folder! But when the wind died down I found it in a foot of water, right where I jumped out of the canoe as it started to swamp when the bow touched down.

I'm not going to knock anyone else's products, but at the price I set for my Washboards you get a lot of value. Especially when its only a few bucks more than some are charging for a couple pieces of leather glued to an attractive piece of hardwood - that's just going to be used with compound anyway...

I can still recall when I transitioned to a fore and aft pass (thanks in large part to the videos of forum members and guys like Jon at JKI and of course MC, and then combined with experiments in small circle sharpening I shortened my pass. Might not work for everybody, but my ability to hold fine angles improved immediately. Also paved the way for gradual improvements to mechanics that continue to this day.

Back to the OP so this doesn't turn into a total hijack. Am wondering how many that prefer rods use them flat on a block or freehand, as opposed to in a turn box, Sharpmaker etc. Reminds me of a conversation I had with Fred about microbevels on rods or his ERU vs microconvex on a strop. If the tools you have are better suited to one strategy over another that's what you'll use. Not many will continue to use a strategy that doesn't give results, and since both methods are used by a large number of folk it really comes down to the 'why' as much as the 'what'.

Martin
 
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