Is a leather strop necessary when sharpening a pocket knife?

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ben317

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May 10, 2011
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Hi guys, first time post in the forum :)

I recently caught the high end pocket knife bug. I bought myself a small Chris Reeve Sebenza pocket knife a few weeks ago and it has gotten a little dull. I tried to sharpen it on an old sharpening stone my grandpa gave me and being inexperienced at sharpening, not only did it seem to make my knife more dull then it already was, it also put a few ugly scratches on the side of my nice knife.

Anyway, getting to the point... I ordered a nicer Spyderco triangle knife sharpener online but I've noticed in a few youtube instructional videos that a lot of people use a leather strop on their knife after they sharpen it. I was wondering if I needed to go order a leather strop. What does the strop do for me?
 
I too have some questions about stropping. I seem to make my knives duller when I strop after sharpening to 8,000 mesh. I guess I am doing it wrong, but I dont know what to change, and assuming proper technique is diamond paste required? Sorry for the hijack, but we may get more answers if we pool our questions
 
Stropping isn't necessary, but can "fine tune" the edge. As an edge gets sharper, finer, you generally need to ease up on the pressure. Each grit change, lighten up some more.

Even when stropping, light pressure is key, as well as angle.

Both of you should watch sharpening tutorials, like the ones at Knives Ship Free.
 
I've heard a few people say it's impractical to use a strop on a pocket knife and that a razor sharp edge on a pocket knife (like that which can be obtained by stropping) will disappear quickly.
 
If a strop makes a pocket knife too sharp then how sharp is sharp enough for a pocket knife and what is a good test of that sharpness?
 
You should learn to sharpen on a less expensive knife...holy cow :eek:.

No, you don't need a strop to sharpen your knives, but it's a big help imho, whether you use stones, sandpaper, or what-have-you. Stropping with some chromium oxide compound or diamond paste (after sharpening on a fine grit) is a simple way to put a really fine edge on your knives. If you know what you're doing you can get an extremely sharp edge with just stones, though, so it's not absolutely necessary. Murray Carter, for example, gets great results with a very simple 1000 grit stone followed by a 6000 grit stone and a light stropping on newspaper, if I recall correctly. It's all about technique.

Also, there is no such thing as too sharp. The sharper the better.
 
Yeah... I worried about using that stone on my Sebenza... I'm hoping that I can ship it back to Chris Reeve and he can polish/re-tumble the blade and remove the scratches... live and learn I guess :)
 
ben317 said:
I've heard a few people say it's impractical to use a strop on a pocket knife and that a razor sharp edge on a pocket knife (like that which can be obtained by stropping) will disappear quickly.
Click to expand...

Not at all true. Use a charged leather strop hone on pocketknives all the time.
 
Not really necessary, but this quoted post explains it well.


foxx said:
Stropping isn't necessary, but can "fine tune" the edge. As an edge gets sharper, finer, you generally need to ease up on the pressure. Each grit change, lighten up some more.

Even when stropping, light pressure is key, as well as angle.

Both of you should watch sharpening tutorials, like the ones at Knives Ship Free.
Click to expand...
 
I want my knife as sharp as I can get it and a strop loaded with diamond does that. Although I would make my knives more dull when attempting to use green CrO but as soon as I changed to diamond I could tree top hairs. I wouldn't even mess with anything but diamonds, especially with newer high carbide content stainless steels. CrO just doesn't cut fast enough and you have to strop much longer which increases the chance of stropping at the wrong angle and rounding the edge. It might work on simple carbon steels like 1084 but I don't own simple carbon steel blades.
 
I am trying to learn how to strop with greem chrom but havn't gotten satisfactory results despite watching tutorials and Garth from Busse Combat do it in person. I can sharpen any knife with a stone and finish up with a spyderco sharpmaker though and have done so for 15 years or so. I looked at micron size once and thought the white stones on a sharpmaker might have been about the same size as the green compound but maybe you can't compare the two. If your sebenza was truly just a little dull with no edge damage a sharpmaker would have gotten it hair shaving sharp in quick order.
 
We use a leather belt on one of the grinders loaded with white buffing compound. It'll tune up an edge in a hurry..
 
Did you raise a burr? If you didn't, your stone probably didn't match and angle of the edge, in which case you're not going to be sharpening anything. First, learn how to raise and remove a burr. That will give you a sharp knife. Then learn how to strop, which will make a sharp edge even sharper. But take one step at a time.
 
Stropping isn't necessary, but it definitely helps. It finishes your edge and makes it that much sharper and stropping after each day of use in my experience keeps the razor edge going longer. I only sharpen with my stones or Lansky if I'm reprofiling, or after my strop stops being able to keep up my razor edge.
 
I personally use a strop, but i dont think its necessary.
I free hand sharpen my knives and stropping with diamond paste helps me get a hair popping edge and gives me a mirror finish- which i like. If you get a jig like an edgepro or wickededge, that will eliminate a lot of human error and you probably wont need to strope at all. I dont use the jigs, I kind of like the free hand way of doing things. (but steels like s110v is tiring to sharpen).
My strop and diamond compound make my edges sharper, not duller. I'm not sure why an 8,000 mesh strope would dull the blade.
 
EBHM4 said:
Stropping isn't necessary, but it definitely helps. It finishes your edge and makes it that much sharper and stropping after each day of use in my experience keeps the razor edge going longer. I only sharpen with my stones or Lansky if I'm reprofiling, or after my strop stops being able to keep up my razor edge.
Click to expand...

What he said. I can bring a sharp blade back to hair popping with Cr0 compound on a leather hone in just a few minutes. :thumbup:
 
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