Let's Talk About Sharpening Our Survive! Knives

Texas_toothpick said:
OK so I touched up the 5.1 on the spyderco and she was shaving sharp. Went to the dry strop and now nothing. Still makes nice curls in paper but won't shave hair. :( was I using too much pressure maybe? The leather is pretty hard I might add.
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What grit are you sharpening up to before stropping? You should typically be able to shave hair before the knife leaves the stones.

I'm wondering if you didn't deburr properly.
 
Texas_toothpick said:
Fine stones on the sharp maker.
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I just noticed that you mentioned (and showed) that the strop doesn't have any compound on it. Without compound, stropping doesn't really do much except push the edge back into place. With compound, it does that while also polishing the edge with light abrasion. Think of sharpening as grinding and stropping as polishing in that respect.

So what's happening here is you're leaving an edge that's good at slicing (cutting paper) but not necessarily push cutting (shaving). When you go to the strop, the grit's not changing since there's no abrasive, and the edge is already aligned since it's clean off the stones, so it stands to reason that you won't see any difference. Dry stropping is useful when you've been using your knife and you just want to realign any rolls and other damage on the fly, but it's not going to really polish your edge.

So if you're looking for a shaving edge, bring it to a shaving edge on your Sharpmaker - the F rods should be sufficient for that, I believe. Stropping with compound after that simply refines the already sharp edge to give it a little more "pop". For example, this is my Izula (older picture, I've really got to update these) done on DMT C/F/EF. After this grit progression, it was shaving and push cutting newsprint. After I stropped it with compound, it gave it a clearer finish, a little more sharpness and thus ease of cutting:

AstSEie.jpg


But stropping was a finishing step rather than a sharpening step. The edge was already shaped and sharp, stropping just put it over the top. So in your case, get that knife shaving sharp off the stones (again, the F rods should be fine) before stropping. As far as why that's not happening in your case, I would look into how to deburr - I've found that whenever I'm having trouble getting a shaving edge, it's because I left too much of a burr. So:

- Sharpen with the M rods.
- Deburr.
- Sharpen with the F rods.
- Deburr again.
- Lightly apex again or microbevel with the F rods.
- Strop to refine as needed.

No burrs left after any grits = a very clean (and thus sharp) edge.

Stropping can be used as a crutch sometimes to straighten out a burr left over by sharpening. Sounds good, right? Stropping will straighten it out, thus aligning the edge, and making it seem sharp. But this isn't necessarily a good thing, since that weakened metal will collapse after some use (think about a paper clip or soda can bent back and forth until it tears, a burr being flipped back and forth will act similarly). Deburring before stropping means you'll be polishing the very apex of the edge rather than the short-lived burr.

Does that make sense? Before you load that strop with compound, wait for others to chime in - everybody has different methods, and it's been a busy day at work so my explanation might be a little off.
 
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No compound = limited results. When you get some compound (from Stropman?) on that strop you will be amazed at the difference.
 
I was all set to get a nice strop and now I'm getting scared I will ruin my knives!! (I jest) I have plenty of old not-so-nice knives to practice on. I know it has been posted on Bladeforums before but are there any videos people would suggest for using strops I fully understand the concept and have watched a few on my own...but they let just about anyone post a video on youtube nowadays!!
 
Texas_toothpick said:
Yea I think I understand. Makes sense.

I'm gonna get a good strop and some compounds soon.
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If you don't have any compound yet, you might wanna try out the Porter Cable metal polish at Lowes. One of the sharpening gurus on the Esee forum likes the black compound a lot.
 
Standard78 said:
If you don't have any compound yet, you might wanna try out the Porter Cable metal polish at Lowes. One of the sharpening gurus on the Esee forum likes the black compound a lot.
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I keep some white and green around for this purpose. Cheap enough to try without breaking the bank.

I will say, though, that it won't touch some of the high wear resistance steels. It works great on ESEE's 1095, and I can also vouch for it working on VG-10 well enough. But I'm not sure how it'll work on 20CV or 3V. I can give it a try.
 
Standard78 said:
Oh ok that makes sense! I'm pretty sure he was just using that compound for Esee's.
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Yeah, it's perfect for that. Then again, I could just be thinking of the green compound - they have everything up to black IIRC, so perhaps I just wasn't bridging the grits correctly.

A mystery for another day, I suppose. I'll have to give it a shot next time I've got to touch up my 3.5.
 
I'm not positive the grits are the same between the bark river stuff and the porter cable. It would be really nice if it was.
 
I think I'll just stick to the good stuff then! I don't feel like gambling on these knives.
 
How long is the wait on a stropman? I know I ordered it yesterday, I'm not expecting it today. I'm just eager beaver. I'm ready to see the difference in my freebie built vs a good quality strop with compound. I got the HD.
 
Finally ordered my strop today, should be here next week...my old cruddy knifes will never know what hit them!!!
 
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