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- Apr 20, 2018
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Great reading.
Charlie Sir please don’t let me stray off topic.
Stropping - most of know the ins and outs of what not to do and what to do........ but......
Yes I regularly strop to try and maintain that sharp edge- rather than resharpen.
I made my own strop board out of a good solid bit of wood and glued part of one of my old weight belts to it.
After what would end up being hundreds of hours later - I think I am only half way there- because I am by myself here as a knife user / collector- so cannot sit down with others and be taught one on one - you tubing goes so far.
I find holding the knife as lightly as possible- getting that angle right- and I listen to the Blade running on the Leather.
Played with- ( unsuccessfully ) pastes so I strop dry and lightly.
If I am not careful I can blunten an edge while stropping- so always it has my full attention, do my fellow knife mates here find the same?
Hello Duncan,
First and foremost, as you've likely discovered, there are many, many answers when asking questions around sharpening. Some are in direct contrast of one another, other's are just different approaches, some matter more than others, and many are just opinions.
So, if I may sir, I'll toss some of mine into the mix for your consideration.
As said, regardless of the type, style, or grit of an edge, the steel will largely dictate the edge retention duration. Then the media the blade is used to cut will have a significant impact.
"Shaving sharp" is a term that gets used a lot but that doesn't always mean the same thing. For me, a knife is sharp if it can shave forearm hair. It's really sharp if it can easily shave leg hair. It's really, really sharp if it can easily slice through receipt paper across the grain and make curls while doing so. Just my personal quantifiers.
It is my experience that most knives, be they basic low-alloy steels or S90V, will lose those varying degrees rather quickly. I have a knife in BD1 which is considered by many to be a garbage steel or at best, okay (I love the stuff) and I have the exact same knife in S90V which is widely praised as having amazing edge retention. My experience says that given the same general daily EDC use, I can't tell the difference in losing that shaving sharpness. But I do think the S90V will keep going longer than the BD1 in just general cutting ability. The thing is, I'll typically strop, hone or re-sharpen before either get that far so it doesn't matter to me.
I am not into de-stressing edges or microbevels and I don't get overly concerned about matching angles to steels and tasks. I generally freehand sharpen and it seems most of my knives end up around 15 degrees per side and they all work fine. I have a couple kitchen knives I'm intentionally going lower on but still, it's just not that big of a deal to me.
Many people are against stropping and it can be a deep subject with many staunch opinions all around but I strop. I strop for two reasons: 1) At the end of sharpening to ensure any remaining burr is removed (trying to get better about doing this on the stone to see if I notice a difference) and 2) for between sharpening touch ups.
Bare stropping, be it on leather, denim, cardboard, or wood is going to have minimal effect and only on softer alloys. The common green bar compound (CrO) is very good for these alloys as you are both straightening the edge through stropping but also getting a slight sharpening effect from the abrasive. That said, I personally think many people have issues because they make too many strokes when stropping. A lot of us think of the old barber whisking a straight razor back and forth along a leather strip. In 1 above, I only make maybe two passes per side, very light and and at a lower angle than I sharpened. In 2 above, I don't do much more than that. If a few strokes per side won't get the blade back where I want it, then it needs a stone, hopefully a high grit will do it.
I also think many folks feel their blade is sharp off the stone and then when they strop feel the blade dulled and blame their stropping skills. While there may be some room for improvement there, it is also quite possible that they had a burr still on the blade coming off the stone. This will feel and act very sharp, but then when stropped, the burr will be removed, revealing the true apex and if it isn't precise, then the edge will feel duller after stropping. The goal is do things well enough on the stone that the stropping doesn't show any real difference. Post-sharpening stropping, in my opinion, should just be a precaution check type thing. Unless of course you want to use stropping as an intentional edge enhancement process which is another discussion altogether.
Sharpening is all about angle. Yes, we need to match sharpening media to different steels and there are a lot of nuances and details but the most important thing is angle. Use a marker to mark the edge bevel and let that guide your sharpening. If the ink is only coming off shoulder of the edge, you're too low. Only off the very edge, you're too high. Work until the ink is gone (sometimes there may be factory grinds that leave tough spots and require multiple sessions) and you have a burr, then flip sides and repeat, Then light strokes side-by-side-by-side, etc.
Don't get flustered and know that you will make mistakes and you will learn and improve. I've been at it for 40 years or so and am still learning and still screw up and still sometimes need to walk away. But when you start getting it right more often than not, it is very rewarding.
I know this was very long and I hope it wasn't too boring.

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