Multiple paste stropping. Is it worth it for a user?

[darth_cholo]

Wootzblades sticky post on sharpness is great. it answered my question about how much sharper after hair shaving can a knife get.

Spending the extra time on stropping with multiple micron pastes as hobby brings personal satisfaction that it's "as sharp as it can get" and for professional sharpeners it's a great thing to offer and maybe expected. Mirror pushed edges are sick.

With 1200grit stones and a kniveplus strop block I feel according to hair shaving tests I can get between 0.1 and 0.2 microns.

My question is, how much sharpness does stopping with additional pastes provide?

Does that extra level of refinement go away as soon as I cut some cardboard?

 

[maximus83]

My question is, how much sharpness does stopping with additional pastes provide?

Check out the Michael Christy YT videos on stropping and sharpening--he gets impressive results going through a long progression of strop pastes. I would almost never go through all that on a real-world user knife (due to the small incremental increase in sharpness you get for all the effort invested). But he does get them sharp at a level beyond what most of us get on our user knives.

Does that extra level of refinement go away as soon as I cut some cardboard?

Yes. If you go thru all the steps so that you can not just shave arm hair, but whittle up curls on a free-hanging hair, etc., you are not going to retain that extreme level of refinement for very long.

 

[Rhodies]

Check out the Michael Christy YT videos on stropping and sharpening--he gets impressive results going through a long progression of strop pastes. I would almost never go through all that on a real-world user knife (due to the small incremental increase in sharpness you get for all the effort invested). But he does get them sharp at a level beyond what most of us get on our user knives.



Yes. If you go thru all the steps so that you can not just shave arm hair, but whittle up curls on a free-hanging hair, etc., you are not going to retain that extreme level of refinement for very long.

I always wonder why folks would expend that much effort into knife sharpening when that keen of edge would quickly disappear. Other than bragging rights, what purposeful purpose does it serve? Myself, I'd like to see if I could do it once but after that one time I would just strive for a keen working edge (Shave arm hair, slice through receipt paper with ease). I would add to my post I have never ever gotten hair whittling results.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

For a user on cardboard, all the extra polish isn't worth it (with ONE exception in my uses; see below). Aside from simple shaving sharpness, the more advanced 'tricks' performed on strands of hair with an uber-polished edge will usually go away fast, after a cut or three in heavy cardboard, most of the time.

It's possible though, for an edge at good geometry, finished on something as simple as a coarse or fine stone with little or no stropping, to still shave hair after some cardboard cutting. The edge geometry will make the bigger difference there, so long as the steel's heat treat is competent and the edge is fully apexed and deburred. Decently heat-treated steel, finished to geometry below 30° inclusive, makes shaving easier after the apex loses a little bit of crispness. And it doesn't have to be 'super steel' either; I first realized it with simple 1095 & CV blades, as well as with low-alloy stainless steels like 420HC.

The exception:
For thicker blades used in cardboard cutting, I DO like a polished convex BEHIND the edge. The best cardboard slicers will always be THIN blades; but, for a thicker blade relegated to cardboard duty, convexing and polishing the steel ABOVE the edge makes a big difference with friction in heavy cardboard. A coarser finish on the primary grind or hard-edged shoulders on thick V-bevels tend to be grabbed & bound up in heavy cardboard, forcing the user to apply a lot more pressure to get through the cut. The convex above the edge gets rid of that hard, crisp shoulder on the bevels, and polishing the convex will get it scary-slick in going through cardboard. But again, it's less about the polish of the edge itself, and more about the edge geometry and the finish of the steel behind it.

 

[darth_cholo]

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like for my needs I'm set