New guy, stropping seems to dull Native

[MikeSSS]

First, this is a great board and the knives are most excellent art objects.

Got a Native at Wal-Mart the other day and sharpened it on crock sticks. It was pretty sharp out of the box and sharper after. The last step was very lightly stropping it on the crock sticks. After this it would slice paper just fine and even slice paper towel near the fingers holding the towel.

Tonight I took out a leather with some red Turtle Wax rubbing compound on it and lightly stropped the knife. After that it would not slice paper towel but will still slice paper. I'm thinking the stropping on leather smoothed out some micro serations that helped the slicing. This isn't the first time I've noticed that stropping seems to dull a knife or at least reduce it's slicing ability. The edge even feels less sharp to the fingers.

Any ideas on what is going on here or what I should be doing? Any advice on sharpening tools and technique would be greatly appreciated.

PS: (I tried mouse pad sharpening once and the results were really bad.)

 

[mutinousdoug]

Coating the blade with turtle wax will increase friction and inhibit it's unhindered path through the paper towel.
Or; you may have turned up the blade at the end of each stroke and dulled the edge that way, which is a common mistake with mousepad sharpening? (as you seemed to have found?)
A 5x or 10x loupe will tell you a lot about what your edge really looks like.
HTH
Doug

 

[richard j]

i agree with checking out the edge to see what it looks like. was it the same brand of paper towel?

 

[Confederate]

Tonight I took out a leather with some red Turtle Wax rubbing compound on it and lightly stropped the knife. After that it would not slice paper towel but will still slice paper. ... Any ideas on what is going on here or what I should be doing?

I think you assessed the situation well. Whenever you sharpen a knife, there's a chance that you'll raise a tiny burr. That burr may not last long when you begin real cutting chores, but it will cut paper slices.

A blade's never as dull as most people assume. My mother recently picked up one of my knives and fingered the blade. She said, "This doesn't seem very sharp to me." I picked up a piece of paper and sliced two pieces off and she shrugged and said, "I guess I was wrong."

A knife's edge will not hold as well unless you strop it. You can use leather, or even cardboard if you need to. The edge also is affected by the angle you sharpen it with. If the edge comes with a more acute angle than what your sharpener will provide, you'll get it a bit more of a course edge.

I envy people who can just pick up a sharpener and put the edge on it they want with nary a thought. I'm still practicing, but often when you sharpen a knife and it seems to bite into the thumb with even a light stroke, what you're feeling may be the wire burr you're raising.

 

[Jason B.]

The red rubbing compound is coarser than the ceramic, technecially you are dulling the knife.

 

[65535]

Rubbing compounds where intended for paint, not knife steel. Go out to sears and pick up green chromium oxide strop/buffing compound, having a solid backing to the leather keeps it from curling the edge too. Also strop at an even lower angle.