Dry Stropping

I think anything that can at least move a bur around is better than nothing. Actually, I will generally finish my stropping on dry leather. It just feels like it gives it that one last little buff.
 
You don't absolutely need to strop, but it can be very useful to maintain a blade between sharpenings or to remove a burr on stubborn steels. A bare strop works just fine. The compounds, sprays, and emulsions just enhanced the polishing affects.

I like a very firm strop over a softer one or a slack belt, but a bare leather belt works. You can use smooth wood or cardboard or even the denim in your jeans so the belt will work. The softer material or a slack belt will start to convex the edge more so than a firmer surface, but I freehand sharpen so most of my edges are slightly convexed anyway.
 
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I use a plain leather hanging strop to remove burrs. Usually improves the BESS score by at least 20 grams, even on S90V. I would think a leather belt with a flat surface would work fine.
 
I'm not a fan of stropping, particularly with today's powder steels with their high carbide content. Steeling (I use a smooth oval steel, around 64 HRC) seems to work more effectively at bringing an edge back.
 
A guy a work told me he use to use a piece of cardboard to strop. Not sure what kind of results he got but the stuff is fairly abrasive.
 
Generally anything is better than nothing but there are a lot of variables of course. Damage to the edge, kind of alloy at play, etc. For a quick touch up it will work to take off a wire edge or realign a burr but likely wont do much to a high alloy steel that needs any kind of significant work.
 
Alberta Ed said:
I'm not a fan of stropping, particularly with today's powder steels with their high carbide content. Steeling (I use a smooth oval steel, around 64 HRC) seems to work more effectively at bringing an edge back.
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I tend to burnish with antique F. Dick smooth steels from between the wars, although my knives are made of simple carbon tool steels. I burnish at the first sign of slight dullness.

I have a couple nice strops that I seldom use.

Parker
 
Papaw 1 said:
Is dry stropping a blade on a leather dress belt better than not stropping at all?
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Better ? I dry strop all the time ..
If you have a kitchen knife - Do you really want chem's on it ?
If you strop correctly , nothing wrong with dry stropping ..

Stropping with some sort of compound , is a form of sharpening ( metal removal ) .. Minute metal removal .
Stropping without compounds removes very little if any metal , but will helps with burs and bit's of metal hanging on to the edge .
99.99% of the time , my blades smooth out after dry stropping ..
Probably because high spots / burs / etc get removed ..
Also - Stropping can help detect a stubborn bur ..
If say you do 5 passes in one direction and then check for a bur and find one ? ( Yeah )
You may wish to refine your sharpening process .
 
Stropping can work with almost anything if the edge is ready for it coming off the stones. If the edge is thin enough off the stone, then a simple dry leather belt with no compound can still make a difference. Most of that will be in aligning the thin edge straight - but some of it will also be about removing any loosely-hanging remnants of burrs and generally 'cleaning up' the edge. This is largely the type of stropping I prefer. It does just enough to enhance sharpness, without any significant abrasion which can otherwise reduce the toothy bite very quickly, maybe more than you want it to.

Dry stropping won't help much though, if the edge coming off the stone isn't quite ready for it. If it's not fully apexed, in other words. But most any stropping at all, whether with compound or not, wouldn't help much in that case. Abrasive stropping on an incompletely apexed edge usually just rounds it off, making it duller.
 
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