Knives Plus Strop

Django606 · Dec 16, 2006

Would anyone with personal experience with the Knives Plus strop care to share their thoughts about it? How is the compound they work into it? It seems like they go through a lot of steps to make one, but is it just a bunch of hype, or is it really a good strop?

http://www.knivesplus.com/KP-STROP8-STROPBLOCK.html

Thanks in advance.

hardheart · Dec 16, 2006

I've had a couple, they work well.

Locopelli · Dec 16, 2006

I like mine.

I use it in combination with two other strops depending how "fine" of a job I am trying to do.

Cliff Stamp · Dec 17, 2006

Django606 said:
... is it just a bunch of hype, or is it really a good strop?

Yes, and likely yes. It is a myth that you need a strop to achieve the finest edge you can apply and it is a myth that in fact they actually produce a superior edge at all.

http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/Stropping.html

The main use of those compounds is that they can be applied in a way that benchstones and fine papers can not, you can load paper wheels with them for example.

-Cliff

hardheart · Dec 17, 2006

Why was he stropping with those compounds if he had already applied a .5 micron edge finish? I use the strop (or newsprint, I have some Cro in a squeeze bottle) because I don't have papers/stones that fine.

And didn't Verhoeven find the Tormek strop to have a really positve effect on the edge finish?

I've always found working with sandpaper to be aggravating-cutting the paper while sharpening or dealing with leftover adhesive from psa backed sheets. I want to get some 0.1 micron diamond on mylar, though.

Cliff Stamp · Dec 17, 2006

hardheart said:
Why was he stropping with those compounds if he had already applied a .5 micron edge finish?

To see if it was an improvement.

...didn't Verhoeven find the Tormek strop to have a really positve effect on the edge finish?

So did Lee because their finishing abrasive was not as fine as Beach's.

-Cliff

hardheart · Dec 17, 2006

Maybe I have too much faith in 3M, but I don't see how he could imagine improving the edge finish at the same micron size, going from the specialty paper to a crayon rubbed on a piece of wood.

The scratch pattern is interesting. Perhaps since the abrasive is not fixed to a substrate, the individual particles are able to displace each other and create distinct scratch lines, while on the paper they cannot? Or maybe the particles are just not graded as accurately in the compounds.

Cliff Stamp · Dec 17, 2006

hardheart said:
Maybe I have too much faith in 3M, but I don't see how he could imagine improving the edge finish at the same micron size, going from the specialty paper to a crayon rubbed on a piece of wood.

I don't think he did, he notes this at the end. He was just exploring the idea in detail. Basically when you create a strop of this type you are getting essentially a really low quality hone. It is kind of absurd to think you can take some compound, rub it on leather/paper/cardboard/wood and make something with similar ability as to the high quality papers. Of course if you don't have them, nor high grit stones, then such a strop is better than nothing for a high polish.

-Cliff

hardheart · Dec 17, 2006

yeah, but I kind of like a $15 60,000 grit hone

I might do the scary sharp thing, I need to do something different to improve my edges.

Cliff Stamp · Dec 17, 2006

The really high quality benchstones are expensive, the papers however are not. However I don't tend to like the papers for reasons I noted earlier. Right now I use the Spyderco UF for polishing. Based on comments which have been made about this actually being on the low end for sharpness I am going to pick up one of the higher grit stones because the sharpness I can get on that is about 50 grams on the thread which is way beyond where even most blades which are really sharp fall.

-Cliff

yuzuha · Dec 17, 2006

Brent has a great site there. It certainly represents one heck of a lot of work! Got some amazingly good pics out of that QX3 too. Talk him into buying a good 10-45x inspection scope and camera! (the optical objective magnification of the QX3 is .25x 1.4x and 3.5x times the digital magnification gives the 10x, 60x and 200x. So, the 1.0x-4.5x objectives of an inspeciton scope combined with a better camera chip would give clearer pictures and higher total magnifications)

Cliff Stamp · Dec 17, 2006

I have been looking into that personally, would you care to make some general recommendations on equipment.

-Cliff

yuzuha · Dec 17, 2006

Well, there is here: http://www.microscopeworld.com/MSWorld/default.aspx
http://www.microscope-depot.com/?eid=16&aid=-1&gclid=CKrpn6b5mYkCFRlmWAodgiJ7UQ
http://www.titantoolsupply.com/store.asp?pid=11453&catid=19730
http://www.microscopestore.com/?OVRAW=microscopes&OVKEY=microscope&OVMTC=standard
http://www.microscope-store.com/?OVRAW=microscopes&OVKEY=microscope&OVMTC=standard
http://amscope.com/index.html
http://www.lowpowermicroscopes.com/
etc.

You can get trinocular models and c-mounts for Nikon and Sony digital cameras or you can get a microscope camera. I have the USB model of the LWS MiniVid http://www.microscopesusa.com/MiniVID.html (there is also a cheaper lower resolution model with RCA output but you need a video capture card). I have the 10x30x version of this http://www.microscopesusa.com/Vision.html but a zoom would probably work better for this application.
And one of these http://www.metallurgicalmicroscopes.com/microscopes/mm0011000a.html (got an optional 5x objective that I find more use for than the 100x oil immersion objective that comes with it)

One of these http://www.truevisionmicroscopes.com/scopes/metal/tv0053000a.html would work if you don't mind chaning objectives to change magnification and rig up some sort of holder like a panavise to make it easier to get in at an angle on those bevels. This place also has a 1.3 mpixel camera for less than 300

sodak · Dec 17, 2006

This is fascinating. I'm trying to evaluate my edges with a $10 Radio shack 60 - 100x microscope. It's handy, but very dependent on lighting. The little light that is in it just isn't precise enough. I find, after using the 3000 edgepro tapes, the edges look like mirrors to the eye, and dark to the microscope with a very sparse scratch pattern. It looks *very* close to perfect. Even my Norton 8k doesn't do that. But when I fiddle with the light at odd angles, lo and behold, there is the scratch pattern, and it looks identical to the Norton's....

I think that other than checking for burrs, the Radio Shack model isn't really very helpful. Thanks for the links, Yuzuha, I'm going to check them out also.

Back to the stropping, I have a diamond paste from Thier-Issard that really refines my edges, perhaps because my stones are not fine enough, or my technique good enough. It will take a knife from decently shaving sharp to tree-top trimming sharp in 10 passes on a linen strop.

hardheart · Dec 17, 2006

Try turning the scope around, I've found that the view of the edge goes from light to dark depending on which way you orient the scope to the edge. With the adjustment knobs pointed toward the spine and the light switch facing away from the edge, the bulb is angled at the edge, and with a white background also reflects off of it instead of the blade.

I don't think having a strop improve your edges means your technique is poor, just that you do need the finer abrasive size of the stropping compound to give a good finish polish. Like from the link Cliff gave, if you are already finishing with microfine paper, using the same size particle in a paste on wood is a step backwards. If your diamond paste is finer than your finest stone, then it should improve your cutting performance. And only if you do have good technique, particularly since there is the risk of rounding your edge on a strop.

Cliff Stamp · Dec 17, 2006

hardheart said:
I don't think having a strop improve your edges means your technique is poor, just that you do need the finer abrasive size of the stropping compound to give a good finish polish.

Yeah, Beach was just refering to the common perspective of strops being promoted as the ultimate finish with no constraints. This was true many years ago when stones were in general coarse and polishing compounds fine. Note however that one of the main benefits of stropping tends to be edge alignment, especially on blunted edges.

-Cliff

yuzuha · Dec 17, 2006

sodak said:
This is fascinating. I'm trying to evaluate my edges with a $10 Radio shack 60 - 100x microscope. It's handy, but very dependent on lighting. The little light that is in it just isn't precise enough. I find, after using the 3000 edgepro tapes, the edges look like mirrors to the eye, and dark to the microscope with a very sparse scratch pattern. It looks *very* close to perfect. Even my Norton 8k doesn't do that. But when I fiddle with the light at odd angles, lo and behold, there is the scratch pattern, and it looks identical to the Norton's....

I think that other than checking for burrs, the Radio Shack model isn't really very helpful. Thanks for the links, Yuzuha, I'm going to check them out also.

Back to the stropping, I have a diamond paste from Thier-Issard that really refines my edges, perhaps because my stones are not fine enough, or my technique good enough. It will take a knife from decently shaving sharp to tree-top trimming sharp in 10 passes on a linen strop.

If you want a cheap scope with about 100x then something like this would be a lot better than the radio shack http://www.truevisionmicroscopes.com/scopes/metal/tv0033000a.html

Ken123 mounted his on a panavise and uses another one as a knife holder. Then he got an adaptor so he could hook up his Nikon coolpix to it http://www.knifeforums.com/forums/showtopic.php?tid/780944/tp/1/ (with 3mpixel and 4x zoom he can get some serious magnification out of his setup).

Going to be a trick getting the angle just right to reflect the light just right without overpowering the camera though, so that $500 epi-illuminated one I linked to earlier might be easier to use (the built in light comes out through the microscope objective and then the image reflects back into it).

sodak · Dec 17, 2006

Thanks, I'll check these out. I've been playing with the light orientation and external lighting, but need something more secure and steady than what I have.