Leather Strop vs. Spyderco "Ultra Fine" Stone

[Voodew]

Quick question,

What puts a finer edge on a knife? A leather strop? Or the Spyderco Ultra fine stone bought for the Tri angle sharpmaker?

Thanks

 

[David Martin]

The leather strop. That ceramic stone is rated to around 1500 grit (3U). A loaded strop with chromium oxide (green) will take you to .5U. Well above 2000 grit. DM

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

You'll need stones/hones to put the fine edge there first. If not done there, the strop can't do anything to improve it. The strop is mainly for cleaning up, refining or aligning an already sharp edge. If the edge isn't fine enough prior to stropping, the strop won't be aggessive enough to fix it or refine it.

AND, even if the edge off the stones is excellent, stropping with poor technique or poor choice of compound will very likely diminish it.

How fine the edge gets will therefore depend mostly on you. In skilled hands, stropping will always follow honing on the hard hones (all the way through the UF or beyond), and will refine the edge when it's done right.


David

 

[CSG]

FYI, the UF Spyderco is often compared to a 2000 grit stone (not including Japanese which are a different standard).

 

[David Martin]

FYI, Not in Steve Bottorff's book, Sharpening Made Easy. Still, even if Steve is close, to the original post--- a leather strop is Much finer. DM

 

[David Martin]

You must have missed it when Spyderco's President came on here and posted about the ultra fine ceramic stone. Stating, it was the same stone as the fine only finished/ sanded finer. So it's no finer than the fine grit. DM

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

I posted the below-quoted text in another thread recently. Seems pertinent here. Even from Sal Glesser himself, he says it's basically impossible to exactly pin down the 'real' micron-grit performance of each of the Spyderco hones, other than the UF leaves a finer finish than the Fine, and the Fine leaves a finer finish than the Medium. Too many variables interacting, depending on who you ask, what steel is being sharpened, what the finished result is compared to (other stones or grit standards), etc.

At any rate, per the OP's original question, a leather strop (bare, as implied in the OP) will always be much, much less abrasive than a UF ceramic hone's grit, regardless of whichever particular hone it may be compared to.

Actually, all three of Spyderco's ceramics (medium, fine, uf) use the same abrasive grit. The medium uses a different binder material (hence it's different color). The rest of their effective 'grit rating' is solely dependent on the surface finish created during manufacturing (firing and surface grinding).

A couple of quoted comments from Sal Glesser, in Spyderco's own forum ( http://www.spyderco.com/forums/show...ompared-to-DMT-extra-fine&p=395257#post395257 ):

(from post #6 in the above-linked thread)

(...) All of the ceramics use the same micron size (15-25). the different grits are created by different carriers, different firing techniques and diamond surface grinding.

sal

(from post #10 in the same thread as above):

We've spent a great deal of time trying to determine grits for our stones. The manufacturer has also worked with us, to no avail. A guess seems to be best.

Most abrasives are measured by the grit size used in the matrix. Our ceramic doesn 't work that way. Grit size is constant.

We've tried to compare scratch patterns as Cliff mentioned and this is probably the closest, but nothing that we can say "This is blah blah". Then the Japanese water stones jump into the equation and suddenly there is whole new set of numbers.

So where we end up is:

Our diamonds are a 400 mesh (measureable). (600 on the Duckfoot)

Our gray stone is "medium". (Same material as fine but different carriers and heat treat).

Our fine stone is fine.

Our extra fine is a surface ground fine.

sal

David

 

[CSG]

I've read on their site or from one of the Spyderco folks that the UF was equivalent to 2000, F was equivalent to something like 1600 or 1800, and the coarse was equivalent to 800. I understand the F and UF are the same stone but with two different finishes they have a different result.