Stropping a beveled egde question

W

WillieD

Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Messages
267
I know angle is not as important with stropping a convex edge, but what about a beveled edge. I find that after I run a knife on the sharpmaker, it will shave, but after stropping, I dull it. This is when I tried to lay the bevel on the leather and strop. If I lift the bevel slightly off the leather and strop, I can shave again. Should I have the edge down on the leather, like putting it to a stone, and strop like that or raise it off a bit? I guess if I am supposed to be laying the whole bevel on the leather, like I tried originally, I must be using too much pressure. I am trying to barely put any pressure on at all though.
 
sounds like your rolling the edge. I lay my knife down and raise ti slowly till it just bites the leather to find the angle for stropping
 
Don't be fooled angle is very important.
 
Ben Dover said:
Agreed! Strropping at an incorrect angle can nullify an hour's work in a minute. :(
Click to expand...

+1... Yeah, I learned that hard way when I started stropping last year. That was after reading many posts by people playing down the importance of maintaining an accurate stropping angle. I mean, it's not like I was being careless with my angles, or stropping while doing a headstand or anything like that, just not as steady and in line with my sharpened angle as you actually should be. And using waaay too much pressure. Recipe for rounded over edges. Now I simply strop as if I'm sharpening on a stone with edge-trailing strokes, using the same angle and even less pressure. Big difference.
 
So you actually lay the entire bevel flat on the leather and strop like that? Mine get dull doing that. If I lift the angle so that the edge of the bevel is just touching the leather, I sometimes get better results. I say sometimes because, right now, sometimes I can get it to pushcut paper easily and sometimes I can't get a pushcut at all. Now with convex edges, just mainly lay the blade flat with a slight angle up to hit the edge, right?
 
WillieD said:
So you actually lay the entire bevel flat on the leather and strop like that? Mine get dull doing that. If I lift the angle so that the edge of the bevel is just touching the leather, I sometimes get better results. I say sometimes because, right now, sometimes I can get it to pushcut paper easily and sometimes I can't get a pushcut at all. Now with convex edges, just mainly lay the blade flat with a slight angle up to hit the edge, right?
Click to expand...


Stropping is sharpening, you need to use the same angle as you sharpened at.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top