Palm Stropping?

When I was in school we had a woodwork teacher who stropped chisels on his palms.
He only did it to show us that it could be done, but that we shouldn't ever try it
He was old and really old school!!. used to scare the brown stuff out of schoolkids and teachers alike!!

Take Care
Graham
 
I remember some old timers doing that when I was younger. These "boys" knew their stuff, and were life long workers with their hands no reason it would not work on leathery palms.
 
I remember reading somewhere that after Jerry Fisk sharpened a knife on a Norton Fine India stone that he would strop it on the palm of his hand. So it does seem that this is an old tried-and-true technique. I wouldn't do it myself though, I prefer to keep sharp edges away from my body parts. It probably wouldn't work anyways, I have sissified, air-conditioned office worker hands.
 
I've never heard of it but that doesn't mean much. I'll have to watch the video JD posted when I get home.
 
Absolutely this works, and one does not need to have the hands of a brick mason. Feel the texture of your palm. Those dermal ridges are what polishes the edge. Once you get this process down, you will put an unbelievable final edge on your blades.
 
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I'd heard of it and then I saw a guy at one of the cutting competitions at Blade do it. I've done it with smaller knives a time or two. I've gotten mixed results. Sometimes little or no change and a couple of times it seemed to work well. Never had it degrade an edge so I figure it's worth a shot.
 
I dont use a leather strop anymore, I strop all my trad. pocket knives on my palm, and the side of my hand. I thought more people would do that. I learned it from my grandfather.
 
I have an old leather belt that I use sometimes to strop. The problem with stropping is that while it polishes the blade to a spectacular shaving edge, it takes away from it's slicing edge. It polishes out all of the "ridges" that give the blade it's bite. I have mixed feelings about it.
 
Brasso3 said:
I have an old leather belt that I use sometimes to strop. The problem with stropping is that while it polishes the blade to a spectacular shaving edge, it takes away from it's slicing edge. It polishes out all of the "ridges" that give the blade it's bite. I have mixed feelings about it.
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That can be minimized by using a lower angle, less pressure, and fewer swipes on the strop. I've been stropping most of my blades on the inside (rough) face of my leather belt, both with green compound and then following on bare leather. It also makes a difference to use the belt like a 'hanging strop', i.e. with no firm backing behind it. That helps to minimize how much pressure is exerted against the edge. This does a much better job of cleaning up the burrs and other loose 'tatters' of steel on the edge, without scrubbing out the 'teeth' on it.

There's almost infinite variability in the end results off a strop, just by making small changes in angle and pressure, and also in using different firmnesses and textures of leather (or other materials, like fabric or paper or wood), and different compounds. You can use coarser compounds on your strop, to more closely condition your edge to the desired degree of toothiness or polish. Take a look at posts in the Maintenance forum, from member 'HeavyHanded'. He's done quite a lot of experimenting with coarse silicon carbide compound (powder) on his strops, in order to enhance and preserve the more toothy edge type he prefers.
 
Great point David. Different steels, grinds, angles, leather thickness, compounds vs. plain leather, etc. all make a difference. I use different strops set ups for the few blades I own, all with different grinds, different steels. For the final part of the process, I do use the palm stropping method on all the blades, but I can certainly feel per touch that the final edges are different due to the different steels. Some end with a final "toothy" feel, and some edges are more smooth / polished.
 
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