stropping a knife

Jack142

Jack142

Joined
Aug 26, 2002
Messages
433
ok guys,
I just got a old leather belt and have been playing around with my knives stropping them
just on the leather, no paste,no wood base, just hanging the belt between my hand and holding the belt down with my feet...
WOW it does make a knife " Hair Popin"
So who else strops ?
Do you use a paste and if so what kind of paste ?
did you use a wood, metal base ?
Any tricks you want to devulge ?
Jack
 
I strop as a part of daily maintenance as well as the final polish after a sharpening. I prefer a mounted strop as I think that there is less chance of rolling the edge.

I bought a great strop from www.handamerican.com that is a slab of Corian with a piece of leather on both sides. The unfinished side you rub in some CrO paste that comes with the strop. The other side is tanned leather and left as is. A great strop and very affordable and good enough looking that you can leave it out.
 
I just got a strop from Tony Miller who is a member over at the straightrazorplace.com forums. You can check out his strops by searching his ID on ebay: heirphoto. I cant say enough about his paddle strops and they are not very expensive. He also offers 4 way strops where you can put paste of different grits on the different sides.
 
what kind of paste do you guys use ? I have a bunch of different buffing wheel pastes and was wondering if I could use one of them ?
 
Jack142 said:
what kind of paste do you guys use ? I have a bunch of different buffing wheel pastes and was wondering if I could use one of them ?
Click to expand...

I just use the Cromium Oxide Paste (it's green) that came with my Hand American Strop.
 
The idea is this, you've just sharpened a blade, there will be and edge that is rolled to one side, a nice even stropping on both sides will hopefully get the edge to stand up straight and as Tim said, it is much more important a part to daily mainenance than it is to re sharpen a lot, if you keep that edge standing straight you wont need to grind and more metal off.
 
Jack142 said:
what kind of paste do you guys use ? I have a bunch of different buffing wheel pastes and was wondering if I could use one of them ?
Click to expand...

I also use a Hand American strop with 0.5 micron chromium oxide.

You could certainly try whatever you have for a fine paste.
 
This is what I am using:

stones-06.jpg


Full set including EzeLap (leather is from Hand American Made)

sharpening-01.jpg


Thanks, Vassili.
 
I use balck and green (from Bark River), but I also have the 0.5 micron Veritas green chromium oxide from Lee Valley, which works well (which you can also buy together with a strop from them). I second the motion to use a mounted strop, as it is easy to round off the edge with an unmounted strop if you don't have the technique down just right.
 
I strop all my knives, been doing it for years. I use a german strop conditioning paste, works great. The key to stropping (I have found) is to keep the leather tight, and the blade at the right angle.
 
There are two SECRET WORDS to getting a knife really sharp. But please DON'T TELL ANYONE or folks will stop asking knife sharpening questions.

The first word is "BURR".

The second word is "STROP".

Learn the meaning of these two words and what you must do to obtain or use them and you will be a SHARPIE-MASTER NINJA GURU WIZARD!
And your better half will be pestering you all the time to sharpen the kitchen knives once you sharpen them.


http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=32999&cat=1,43072

http://knifeart.com/geomofcutedb.html

http://knifeart.com/knifedfaqbyj1.html

http://www.mhcable.com/~yocraft/sosak/convex.htm
 
DGG said:
There are two SECRET WORDS to getting a knife really sharp. But please DON'T TELL ANYONE or folks will stop asking knife sharpening questions.

The first word is "BURR".

The second word is "STROP".

Learn the meaning of these two words and what you must do to obtain or use them and you will be a SHARPIE-MASTER NINJA GURU WIZARD!
And your better half will be pestering you all the time to sharpen the kitchen knives once you sharpen them.


Very succintly put. This is the key!
Click to expand...
 
I use the green compound that DGG shows in the Lee Valley link on my strop. I made my own - just took a piece of leather and glued it to a small board. 2.5 inches wide and about 10 inches long. Just like everyone else - Diamond hones (DMT) or ceramic rods until I raise a burr and then strop just enough to remove the burr. That stuff also works great on getting rid of the brass tarnish on my BUCK 110's/112/55 :D Made a small polishing stick for those.

- gord
 
I use a Butz wood-mounted leather strop I got from the Woodcraft Store with .5 micron chromium oxide "green stuff". I don't always strop though. I strop my carving knives, chisels, and gouges because I'm pushing them through wood and I want a polished edge to cut the fibers. I don't generally strop my EDC knives because I like a "toothier" edge for general purpose cutting.
 
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