PLEASE try this new strop!!!

Dog of War said:
Zeasor, a few quick tests confirm you're definitely not delusional. Stropping on the cover of a yellow pages phone book noticeably improved sharpness of both a Calypso Jr. and Junkyard Dog II...Thanks for sharing this slick little sharpening trick you've discovered, Zeasor.
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Perhaps we could form a partnership and sell this new strop. We could corner the market on millions of old phone books for next to nothing. (Got any spare room at your place?) Add an instructional DVD and we would have a revolutionary new bargain "stropping system" with "sharpness testing" papers included (the inside pages of the book). We could offer 3 sizes to suit everyones needs, Small, Medium and Big city size. Can't sell them to cheaply tho, cuz the shipping will be considerable.:mad: You have right of first refusal on this new venture. If you have some spare room and a BIG truck, you can be managing partner. Chew on this bone for awhile, Dog, and let me know.:D:D:D
 
Zeasor said:
Got it, now. Thanks.

Surely there is a single, descriptive term for a simple concave curved blade shape? Anyone?
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I've just seen them referred to as "hawkbill." I don't think anybody would think it was anything else if you were to describe it as such.

Positive and negative errors from statistics, and all that.
 
Zeasor said:
Perhaps we could form a partnership and sell this new strop.... Chew on this bone for awhile, Dog, and let me know.:D:D:D
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If we could just get Chef Tony to do our infomercials ... however since his Miracle Blade knives never get dull, I guess we're out of luck there.

.
 
Works well on ZDP-189. Therefore, I strongly suspect that there are silicates in the Yeloow Book cover!
 
Dog of War said:
If we could just get Chef Tony to do our infomercials ... however since his Miracle Blade knives never get dull, I guess we're out of luck there.
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I like the way you think. If we can't get Chef Tony, how 'bout the king of infomercials, Ron Popeel, stropping a knife to fillet all those fish caught with the Pocket Fisherman. :D
 
Svashtar said:
Ken Warner over at new Blackjack and Mike Stewart at BRKT both make knives with convex grinds, and have mentioned at various times that a simple roll of cardboard will clean up and hone their edges nicely. It really does work, and I believe would work on your knives as well. I think that's what you've found here. Try a square of cardboard with the blade on your knee, pushing down to the edge from the sides of the blade, and I think you'll be surprised to find it works very well, and is easy to do.
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Hi, Norm. I remember trying this a few years ago after seeing it mentioned on the Bark River forums, what I used was plain cardboard like the back of a legal pad or from a shoe box. At the time I didn't feel it did much, but then my sharpening skills have improved a lot since then, plus I've developed much better techniques for testing sharpness. I do believe the clay coating is a significant factor, however, as the improvement in sharpness is impressive.

BTW you might be interested, I tried the phone book strop :) on some other blades, including an EKA folder in 12C27 and a Bark River in A-2, with results that simply amazed me: both will pushcut free-hanging newsprint at over 6" from the point of hold. What's cool about this as well is that there's little risk of rounding the edge -- you can use firmer pressure than with a leather strop, the angle at which you strop is much less critical, and I've yet to overstrop.

Zeasor said:
I like the way you think. If we can't get Chef Tony, how 'bout the king of infomercials, Ron Popeel, stropping a knife to fillet all those fish caught with the Pocket Fisherman. :D
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LOL, you're my kind of guy, Zeasor: good knife tips 'n tricks, and a sense of humor.
 
Zeasor said:
WHOA! Overstrop? I may be guilty and didn't know it. What happens when a blade is overstroped? How does it happen (what are the mechanics)?
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Guess that might be a term I just sort of coined ... referring to when you strop too much, using the more traditional method of stropping on abrasive-loaded leather, and the edge actually starts to dull. Basically what I believe happens is that once you reach the highest possible sharpness, additional stropping on something like leather that has a certain amount of flex and is charged with abrasive starts rounding the very edge, and I suspect potentially weakening it by making kind of a micro-burr. Whatever the mechanism is, stropping too much can start dulling the edge.

But again I'm not seeing this to be much of a problem, if at all, using clay-coated paper ... and from a practical standpoint, that's a real advantage in itself. Probably something to watch for still, particularly if you're ever struggling with a blade that just refuses to take a keen edge.
 
You're right, over stropping can be done and at a certain point you can polish your new edge right off the blade.

The coated paper makes sense, and I'm going to gave to try it. The cardboard can hang up on the edge sometimes, and this should eliminate that. Now I wish I had the 14 different phone books that have shown up on my doorstep that I've tossed in the last 3 months!

Thanks for the tip and feedback.

Norm
 
Dog of War said:
Guess that might be a term I just sort of coined ... referring to when you strop too much, using the more traditional method of stropping on abrasive-loaded leather, and the edge actually starts to dull. Basically what I believe happens is that once you reach the highest possible sharpness, additional stropping on something like leather that has a certain amount of flex and is charged with abrasive starts rounding the very edge, and I suspect potentially weakening it by making kind of a micro-burr. Whatever the mechanism is, stropping too much can start dulling the edge.

But again I'm not seeing this to be much of a problem, if at all, using clay-coated paper ... and from a practical standpoint, that's a real advantage in itself. Probably something to watch for still, particularly if you're ever struggling with a blade that just refuses to take a keen edge.
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Thanks for the info. Good to know. :)


Svashtar said:
You're right, over stropping can be done and at a certain point you can polish your new edge right off the blade.

The coated paper makes sense... Now I wish I had the 14 different phone books that have shown up on my doorstep...
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If this stropping catches on big time, perhaps the various phone books will be published in different "GRITS" so we have a reason to keep them. :D
 
Bigtime props, Zeasor- your clay paper stropping is "da bomb"!:eek::D I've tried it on a couple of knives with great results.

But you wanna know my most "ghetto-tree-topping" effort? Tonite I took a blade with a mediocre edge and hit it with the following:

1) 3 strokes each side on the bottom of a coffee mug.
2) 5 strokes each side on the sides of a beer glass (guess what I'm up to tonite?;))
3) 10 strokes each side on a sheet of pizza coupons!:D

Holy ca'rap!:eek: That ol' beater just scares the hair right off my arm! Who'da thunk that stringing all those ideas together would work so well?

DISCLOSURE: I also just got done watching Dave's DVDs again. Seems like each time I do that I could sharpen a knife on a pet rock and get a good edge!:cool:
 
Here's an unexpected benefit: I feel totally different about junk mail now; practically every day the postman brings me a new strop! :)
 
Rob Babcock said:
...
1) 3 strokes each side on the bottom of a coffee mug.
2) 5 strokes each side on the sides of a beer glass (guess what I'm up to tonite?;))
3) 10 strokes each side on a sheet of pizza coupons!:D

Holy ca'rap!:eek:
...
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Coffee with a beer chaser followed by a bargain pizza. What a recipe for sharpening a knife.:D:D:D
 
Dog of War said:
Here's an unexpected benefit: I feel totally different about junk mail now; practically every day the postman brings me a new strop! :)
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That's awesome, DoW!

Zeasor,

I tried your stropping method with my pocketknife this afternoon (Swamp Rat Howling Rat) and what a fast way to add some extra kick to that edge! Thanks for sharing this discovery!
 
thombrogan said:
...I tried your stropping method with my pocketknife this afternoon (Swamp Rat Howling Rat) and what a fast way to add some extra kick to that edge! Thanks for sharing this discovery!
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This strop even makes a "rat" edgy. Good to know.:D
 
Someone suggested (and I suspected) that the clay coating on the paper may have and abrasive action. My primary testing has been on a heavy clay-coated paper strop snow white in color and tubular in shape. I have stropped a variety of knives including over-stropping one with soft steel. There are no marks or staining on the white that would suggest metal removal. So, I doubt that it has an abrasive action. Anyone have evidence to the contrary?
 
Can't wait to try the magazine covers on my straight razor. At last a use for those old slick gun magazines..
 
Zeasor said:
Someone suggested (and I suspected) that the clay coating on the paper may have and abrasive action. My primary testing has been on a heavy clay-coated paper strop snow white in color and tubular in shape. I have stropped a variety of knives including over-stropping one with soft steel. There are no marks or staining on the white that would suggest metal removal. So, I doubt that it has an abrasive action. Anyone have evidence to the contrary?
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Interesting observation. The back side of the phone book I've been using is printed with an ad for some bottom-feeding personal injury lawyer, so maybe it's just his abrasive personality that's putting such a wicked sharp edge on my knives. :)

OK, tried on some white clay coated paper, and can't say for sure. You can see a definite loss of sheen where the stropping's been done ... but as for discoloration, well, I know you're not going to be removing anywhere near as much metal as you would with fine white ceramic, for example, so it could be that you just can't see the very minute amounts of steel being removed.

I'll try to check this out under a microscope later today, comparing an edge immediately after sharpening on fine ceramic to one that's been stropped. If there's abrasive action, stropping should smooth the striations left by the ceramic.
 
Dog of War said:
Interesting observation. The back side of the phone book I've been using is printed with an ad for some bottom-feeding personal injury lawyer, so maybe it's just his abrasive personality that's putting such a wicked sharp edge on my knives. :)

OK, tried on some white clay coated paper, and can't say for sure. You can see a definite loss of sheen where the stropping's been done ... but as for discoloration, well, I know you're not going to be removing anywhere near as much metal as you would with fine white ceramic, for example, so it could be that you just can't see the very minute amounts of steel being removed.

I'll try to check this out under a microscope later today, comparing an edge immediately after sharpening on fine ceramic to one that's been stropped. If there's abrasive action, stropping should smooth the striations left by the ceramic.
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You may have something there, Dog. Stropping on the lawyer would be abrasive and possibly caustic. You could lose one-third of your blade.:D

As for your microscopic study, please let us know your findings.
 
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