DMT Aligner Strop Insert

confucius37

confucius37

Joined
May 18, 2008
Messages
1,168
I have been working on my sharpening routine for a while now and I have always been having trouble free hand stropping. My problem was that I would always be at either too low of an angle and wouldn't really get any refinement out of my edge or I would go too high and I would destroy all the work I had put in to establish the edge bevel. I tried the sharpie technique on the strop and it did work somewhat, but I wanted something that was more consistent and would fall in better with my general routine.

I use an aligner because its small, fast, consistent, and the diamond stones for it are not that pricey so I can have the full set of grits. To take advantage of the fact that I have the knife already clamped in, I thought why not make some inserts that I can apply diamond paste compound to and take advantage of the consistent angle the aligner provides.

I took some MDF and cut it to size. It was necessary to glue two pieces of MDF together to get the thickness up to 6mm. The DMT aligner stones are 5mm thick so I had to take some time and sand down the MDF on a flat surface until the 5mm thickness was achieved. I was very careful to make sure the surface of the strop insert was as flat as I could manage by measuring the thickness with a caliper at multiple places on the strop so that I knew it was uniformly flat. It was really pretty simple, the most time consuming part was slow and go sanding to make sure the surface was flat.

The result was pretty good. I sharpened a 440C knife and I was able to get a very nice hair popping edge. I haven't had the chance to really put it through its paces yet, but I gotta say this makes stropping brain dead.

I'd like to hear any comments or suggestions you might have. Here are some pics, the strops are 6, 3, 1 micron diamond paste from DMT:

d59QK.jpg


DhfHr.jpg
 
Last edited:
bonzodog said:
sorry ,I use 3000 grit edgepro tape.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that sounds interesting. I am curioous now about playing around with different compounds and mediums with these inserts since they're so cheap and easy to make. Not to mention the consistency of the angle at which you are stropping means that you can make better comparisons between different compounds and mediums.

I had some more time with this last night and I think I have finally found the perfect solution to stropping (for me anyway). I think the inserts have a number of benefits over free handing:

1. consistent angle
2. I can spend more time stropping without getting fatigued since I don't have to pay attention to the angle nearly as much
3. Making a strop inserts is very cheap and I can experiment with different compounds, etc.
4. My entire sharpening kit is so small I can fit the whole thing in a medium sized ziplock bag :D

I put a razors edge on a knife in 1095 last night...first time I got consistent hair whittling along the entire edge and I bet I can get even better results if I played around about matching different compounds to different steels, etc.
 
very interesting idea
thanks

If you are stropping on a soft surface like leather, why does the backing have to be so flat?
 
neeman said:
very interesting idea
thanks

If you are stropping on a soft surface like leather, why does the backing have to be so flat?
Click to expand...

If used freehand, it doesn't necessarily need to be. But with a guided system (as here), since the goal is maintaining as precise and consistent angle as possible to produce a uniformly flat bevel, a stropping or honing surface that's warped, curved, etc. wouldn't maintain the angle well. To keep the angle consistent, the honing (stropping) surface needs to move in a consistent, flat plane, relative to the edge bevel. Otherwise, it'd defeat the purpose of using the guided sharpener.

So long as the soft leather isn't used under too-heavy pressure (and it shouldn't be, for stropping), the leather won't compress enough to degrade the results. And the flat backing keeps it all on plane. It's obviously better to use as firm a surface as possible, but a somewhat softer stropping surface can still work well, if used very, very lightly. Consider how well stropping on one's jeans can work, while wearing them, even though the 'soft' surface has a lot of give to it. This is why we take great care to keep pressure very, very light, when we're putting the finishing touches on a very sharp blade, against our own leg. ;)

David
 
Last edited:
Thread-res'ing because this is very similar to what I have been thinking about doing, except on a DMT Dia-Fold!

Was wondering how this has been going for the OP?

Also, with the clamped system, is it hard to do touch-ups - since you can never clamp it the exact same way again right? So strop touch-ups need to be done freehand anyway right?
 
I use a combination of the DMT Aligner and a Lansky kit. I drilled the holder from DMT to accept the stud on the base plate of the Lansky. I find this to give me the best of both sets. As for making a strop to fit the DMY holder I used aluminum stock (1/8") cut to fit the DMT stone holder and contact cement to affix leather to achieve the overall thickness of 3/16".
Load with your favorite grit compound and go at it!!! When the leather is worn beyond use it just peels off and gets replaced.
 
In 2012, there was no Washboard for stropping. I'd suggest check it out: www.washboardsharpening.com
By our own HeavyHanded.

His illustration and videos are one of the best explaining 'what is sharpening about' and the challenge of keeping steady angle in free hand in correlation to the grit of abrasive.
 
I haven't tried it, but I was told to take a piece of paper and wrap it tightly around the diamond plate and lock it into the aligner. Then put a little white or green compound on there (forget which) and strop on that.

Sounds like it should work, but alas, I am not a stropper.

Eric
 
I wrap a piece of polishing film around an ex-fine Aligner stone and use that for finishing work when I really want a edge.
I have large sheets of film in 4,000 - 8,000 - 10,000 - 15,000. I just cut a sheet to the length of the stone and slip one end between the stone and the clamp, wrap the remaining film around the face of the stone, and hold it to the back with a paper clamp. Works fine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top