Maintain edge indefinitely with stropping?

Y

yepimonfire

Joined
Nov 7, 2013
Messages
465
Could using a firm backed strop each time the edge loses it's razor sharpness keep the edge sharp indefinitely or would I eventually still need to do a proper resharpening? I'm talking giving it a good 20 or so swipes per side after each use in order to return it to hair splitting sharpness.
 
Eventually you would need to use some sort of stone, but eventually meaning it all depends on how heavily the knife is used. If there is a really good sharp clean edge on the knife a strop, especially with some diamond paste, could keep the edge cutting well for a good amount of time.
 
Eventually you would still need to, as noted by 115Italian. The key is the hard backed strop. You are on the right track. Conformable surface strops (and most users, myself included) have a tendency to round the edge off, especially if you do more than a few passes.

I notice in my S30V Benchmade 940, my main EDC, that if I strop it once a week, it will bring it close to original edge, but still not quite the same. Usually have to use at least fine spyderco ceramic to bring it back to hair shaving. However, if I carry my D2 Ontario, once a week stropping will shave armhairs again. So it also depends on steel as well.
 
Cliff stamp and a handful of others would suggest not stopping at all (just don't form a burr). But everyone else would say otherwise.

I've had decent luck with just stopping some blades but if I get past a certain point it's game over and have to sharpen.
 
Honestly I find once my edge is set properly I can touch it up very well without forming a burr with my sharpmaker fine rods.

However forming that proper edge I had to use the burr method to make it properly. It just wasn't getting sharp for me. I am a total novice sharpener though so take that into account.
 
Danketch said:
I notice in my S30V Benchmade 940, my main EDC, that if I strop it once a week, it will bring it close to original edge, but still not quite the same. Usually have to use at least fine spyderco ceramic to bring it back to hair shaving. However, if I carry my D2 Ontario, once a week stropping will shave armhairs again. So it also depends on steel as well.
Click to expand...
Blade steel is also a factor. Great point.
 
If you use your blade for opening letters, cutting string, and other essentially effortless tasks, you can keep it sharp with stropping or other touchup methods for just about forever. But if you ever cut anything "real", it's going to deteriorate fast.

Go open 10 cardboard boxes that are taped shut using your blade to cut the seams or (if you dare) the actual cardboard itself. Even with an S30V blade, it's going to be dull enough that stropping will only bring it back a little. Maybe a more "extreme super steel" blade would fare better (S110V ?). But I can tell you from experience that average steel and entry level "super steels" won't hold up to real use and keep anything approaching a "razor edge". Thus they will need a more abrasive substrate in order to reshape the edge that has been rounded and dulled.

Brian.
 
bgentry said:
If you use your blade for opening letters, cutting string, and other essentially effortless tasks, you can keep it sharp with stropping or other touchup methods for just about forever. But if you ever cut anything "real", it's going to deteriorate fast.

Go open 10 cardboard boxes that are taped shut using your blade to cut the seams or (if you dare) the actual cardboard itself. Even with an S30V blade, it's going to be dull enough that stropping will only bring it back a little. Maybe a more "extreme super steel" blade would fare better (S110V ?). But I can tell you from experience that average steel and entry level "super steels" won't hold up to real use and keep anything approaching a "razor edge". Thus they will need a more abrasive substrate in order to reshape the edge that has been rounded and dulled.

Brian.
Click to expand...

Actually the opposite. The more abrasion resistant and hard and hard a steel is the less it will respond to stropping.
 
A lot depends on what finish you're trying to maintain or restore. That, and the steel you're using. If finishing a 'softish' steel like 420HC to a 600+ grit level, a strop used with a steady hand can maintain that almost indefinitely. If you like a coarser finish on your edges, like ~320 or a little lower on the same types of steel, I've found a stone does that better. Too much stropping on such an edge, with such a steel, tends to quickly polish it beyond that favored coarser finish.

I say the above, because for a long while, I was maintaining a lot of my Case/Buck blades (420HC) at a closer-to-polished finish of 600-grit or more. I used a strop with green compound (usually, but sometimes a white rouge on denim) to do that, and used it essentially without exception. At some later point, I started using those edges finished to around ~320, as per the finish coming off the 'Fine' side of a SiC or AlOx stone. That finish works very well with 420HC. But I noticed, in order to keep it as such, I had to dial back the stropping to a minimum, else a green-compounded strop would tend to overpolish it pretty fast (and with white rouge, even faster), so I'd have to go back to the stone to fully restore it.


David
 
Last edited:
A lot of guys just use their knife to open mail, a package of chips or slice a apple. But pruning a fruit tree or cutting tall weeds will take the edge down on S30V. Where merely stropping is challenged to restore. Then it requires some stone work, maybe just light stone work. So, it
depends on the material cut and level of use that stropping can help restore. DM
 
You will eventually need to sharpen it unless you never cut anything. LoL. I'm a stropper myself and usually restore my hair shaving edges as many times as possible before turning to my ceramic or diamond sharpeners. But stropping once or possibly twice is all I can get out my edges before having to sharpen them on a sharpener.
 
On a harder strop one can get many times more touchups with a strop. Some of my camping machetes have been touched up on nothing but a strop for a number of trips, with yardwork included. In the Adirondacks my preferred campwood is American Beech - extremely hard when seasoned. 1075 steel responds great, as well as the steel most of my hatchets are made from, also probably a mid-lo carbon steel. In a pinch I'll strop with ash from the fire smeared on a smooth piece of wood.

Harder alloys and ones with a lot of carbides can be done but will require a compound that includes diamonds or cbn. The average leather strop allows too much deflection to manage this sort of work though. As long as the damage is not too bad and the operator makes sure not to round the edge, a long stretch of maintenance can be achieved. It all depends on how much deflection the surface allows and how aggressive is the compound.
 
Indefinitely, no. How long it postpones other remedies depends mainly on your definition of sharp.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top