Strop

V

ver heiratet

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Sep 7, 2013
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After asking the question, how to keep my blade sharp without grinding it away over time, I was told to strop it. How can I do this with buying an expensive strop. And what is the procedure as far as angle goes, would it be about 15 to 20 degrees? Thank you.
Bat
 
If you were actually grinding your blade on a grinder, I'm glad someone told you to use another method. Going forward, just sharpen the blade on finer abrasives (e.g. automotive sandpaper that goes up to a couple thousand grit). After use, make sure to hone it on a honing rod. To clean up the edge, you can also strop on an old leather belt.
 
A strop is pretty inexpensive really. An old belt or piece of leather glue to a wood backing and a cheap but of buffing compound and you are all set. I strop every knife I sharpen.
 
nopyo said:
Going forward, just sharpen the blade on finer abrasives (e.g. automotive sandpaper that goes up to a couple thousand grit). After use, make sure to hone it on a honing rod. To clean up the edge, you can also strop on an old leather belt.
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This is exactly how Ive sharpened my knives for years. 800 grit, 2000 grit, then leather belt is usually the order I use. And I only use 800 if the blade is pretty dull.
 
I think, though, that if your intention is to never, ever lose any piece of the metal then you are fighting a losing battle. Any sharpening process will remove metal from the blade, albeit in very small quantities. In knife lingo, "grind" usually refers to the process of removing large amounts of metal to give the knife its main angle (from being a flat piece of metal cut into the profile of its final shape). I think the above post mentioning a grinder had this in mind when they told you it was a good thing that you aren't using a grinder. I suspect that you really just don't want to "sharpen your knife away" or remove so much metal in sharpening that you start altering the shape of the knife. From one perspective, it will take a lot of sharpening to make that happen (more likely to happen if skill in sharpening isn't all that high and you have to keep going). On the other hand though, every sharpening process WILL remove metal. There's no other way to do it. Even stropping does it, just at a much slower pace than a stone. Because it does do it slower, stropping will only get you so far. Sometimes, you won't get your edge back without taking it to a stone. Check out the Maintenance forum here http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/794-Maintenance-Tinkering-amp-Embellishment
 
Thanks for the great info. I was using grinding a little to loosely, I am new to getting a good edge, but no I would never use an electric grinder. Thanks again for the information.
Bat
 
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I go to Home Depot and pick up the scrap dividers they use for crates. They are a thin piece of mdf with paper over the top. I then put compound on the brown paper and strop away.
 
You can strop with anything: cardboard, paper, leather, your jeans, your skin, anything softer than the knife. I get by with a piece of cardboard. I'm using the same piece of 600 grit sandpaper I got a couple of years ago. I cut it in half; the first piece is now worn and a finer grit. This is what I use 90% of the time.
 
I've always wondered this about stroping. Do you have to use a true stroping compond? I have a few different polishing compounds for my buffing wheel on the grinder? Hope this adds to OP's question and not derail it.

OP, I made my strop. If you go to a feed store that has saddles you can by good stroping leather. $2 on leather and $3 on the thin MDF. Contact cememnt and rounter and perfect two sided strop.

Best,
 
The expression 'Keeping a blade sharp takes very little work' is useful to think about. If you keep it sharp you tend to use a very fine grit for touchups. If you let it get dull sharpening less often, it takes a lot of work to resharpen it.

So if you touch up your edge with an 8k stone - even daily it will take a VERY long time to use up your blade. And of course you can refine it further. Strops vary in terms of how much you round off your edges, so strops with less give - especially thinner strops - and light pressure will help you to keep from making your edges more obtuse.

---
Ken
 
chavez556 said:
I go to Home Depot and pick up the scrap dividers they use for crates. They are a thin piece of mdf with paper over the top. I then put compound on the brown paper and strop away.
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That's intriguing to me; hadn't been aware of those. I've been doing some of my best stropping lately with similar materials (paper over wood). As a backing substrate for the right compound (this is the most important part), the combination can work great. I still use leather sometimes, mostly with my belt as a hanging strop. But I'm sure I could do without leather at all, if it came down to it. :)


David
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
That's intriguing to me; hadn't been aware of those. I've been doing some of my best stropping lately with similar materials (paper over wood). As a backing substrate for the right compound (this is the most important part), the combination can work great. I still use leather sometimes, mostly with my belt as a hanging strop. But I'm sure I could do without leather at all, if it came down to it. :)


David
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Sorry for the derail...
David, what would you suggest as the "right" compound to use on paper over wood? I've recently started trying this and picked up some cheap Ryobi branded buffing compound from Home Depot. I was actually quite surprised at how much of an improvement it made to my edges. Although I quickly found out that the "coarse" brown compound is much coarser than my 6k arashiyama...oops!

Thanks for any input.
 
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doctorsimpson said:
Sorry for the derail...
David, what would you suggest as the "right" compound to use on paper over wood? I've recently started trying this and picked up some cheap Ryobi branded buffing compound from Home Depot. I was actually quite surprised at how much of an improvement it made to my edges. Although I quickly found out that the "coarse" brown compound is much coarser than my 6k arashiyama...oops!

Thanks for any input.
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As soon as I'd typed that, I sort of knew the question would be asked. :D

That's sort of the fun part. By 'right', I mean as it relates to a particular steel being honed/stropped. I've been using SiC (black) and green compounds a lot lately, and they seem to work well with the paper-on-wood, for most of the steels I'm using (middle-of-the-road stainless like 420HC, Sandvik 12c27, 440A/C, etc., as well as for simple carbon steels like 1095 and Case's CV). I'm coming to the conclusion that green compound (chromium oxide) works very, very well on these steels. The SiC I've been using is 600-grit, and I don't use it as often as the green. But it's been helpful for scrubbing off heavier, more stubborn burrs/wires that the green may not handle as well. I always follow up with the green, after using that, and then sometimes follow on bare paper on wood, or on bare leather.

So, the fun part is experimenting with different compounds on the blades you have. If those are more wear-resistant steels with high carbide content, maybe diamond would be best for those. Otherwise, either SiC (silicon carbide) or aluminum oxide, or green, or a sequence of a combination of those, would seem to work well for most steels.


David
 
ver heiratet said:
After asking the question, how to keep my blade sharp without grinding it away over time, I was told to strop it. How can I do this with buying an expensive strop. And what is the procedure as far as angle goes, would it be about 15 to 20 degrees? Thank you.
Bat
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Someone above suggested a Strop Block. That's a good suggestion. It's not expensive, imho, and will last a lifetime and probably never need reloading unless you use it professionally on a daily basis. Stropping is more about cleaning up an edge that is already apexed and ready to go, to bring it to the next level. It does make a huge difference, but it works best when you've got an edge that is already pretty much burr-free. As for what angle, that depends entirely on what angle you sharpened at. If you sharpened at 15 degrees, then you should strop at that, too. The medium you are stropping on plays a role, too. If you are stropping on leather, if you keep your sharpening angle (or go too high) and use pressure or go at it too long, you could end up dulling/rounding your edge. So you keep your angle low and use light pressure. Less aggressive and firmer surfaces (for example, newsprint on glass) are much, much more forgiving. Hope this helps.

Best thing to do is get a strop, watch some vids, read the stropping sticky at the top of this subforum, and just start practicing. I second the Strop Block recommendation.
 
Magnaminous_G said:
Someone above suggested a Strop Block. That's a good suggestion. It's not expensive, imho, and will last a lifetime and probably never need reloading unless you use it professionally on a daily basis. Stropping is more about cleaning up an edge that is already apexed and ready to go, to bring it to the next level. It does make a huge difference, but it works best when you've got an edge that is already pretty much burr-free. As for what angle, that depends entirely on what angle you sharpened at. If you sharpened at 15 degrees, then you should strop at that, too. The medium you are stropping on plays a role, too. If you are stropping on leather, if you keep your sharpening angle (or go too high) and use pressure or go at it too long, you could end up dulling/rounding your edge. So you keep your angle low and use light pressure. Less aggressive and firmer surfaces (for example, newsprint on glass) are much, much more forgiving. Hope this helps.

Best thing to do is get a strop, watch some vids, read the stropping sticky at the top of this subforum, and just start practicing. I second the Strop Block recommendation.
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Mag,

I saw in one of your vids that you used paper as a strop. Granted it was on HH's washboard but I was wondering if you use paper (loaded or not) over a stone or glass to strop as well? Or do you only use paper on the washboard and leather when not using it?

Thanks.
Iain
 
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