Stropping compound or diamond spray

[Repo1]

After sharpening with DMT xfine what would you recommend for stropping or should I get an xxfine and then strop ? In either case what compound or micron size spray? I am just learning to sharpen and have the diafolds through xfine with the aligner. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[FlaMtnBkr]

I don't know the best sequence to take your knives through.

I strop with diamond spray once a knife will cleanly shave arm hair. This usually makes the knife quite a bit sharper and takes it to the next level.

I use 1 and then 0.5 micron diamond spray and think it works great. I have not had any luck with green chromium oxide and think I actually made my knives duller. It might work good on a simple carbon steel but with more modern stainless steels with lots of carbides, you need something that is very hard to be able to 'cut' the carbides and refine the edge.

 

[KarlMaldensNose]

I don't know the best sequence to take your knives through.

I strop with diamond spray once a knife will cleanly shave arm hair. This usually makes the knife quite a bit sharper and takes it to the next level.

I use 1 and then 0.5 micron diamond spray and think it works great. I have not had any luck with green chromium oxide and think I actually made my knives duller. It might work good on a simple carbon steel but with more modern stainless steels with lots of carbides, you need something that is very hard to be able to 'cut' the carbides and refine the edge.

Me too. I find that I make my knives duller with 0.3 micron chromium oxide after 1 micron diamond spray?!? At least I think they are duller after, but I haven't ruled out the possibility that they're actually sharper but just a different kind of sharp, if that makes any sense. But if anything, a sharper, smoother, more refined edge finished on 0.3 mic CrO should perform push cuts better than an edge finished on 1 mic diamonds, and I find the opposite to be true in my case.

Sorry for hijacking. To your question, I undoubtedly believe and find that the sharper an edge is before stropping, the more it will benefit from stropping. Of course there are also a bunch of variables at play here, such as blade steel, stropping compound, stropping substrate, edge geometry...

 

[Jason B.]

Get the DMT diamond compound and put it on some MDF or balsa wood. The XF DMT is 9 microns so to properly get the next level of sharpness you can't go too fine. Using the 6, 3, and 1 micron compounds after your EF properly will yield perfect mirror polished hair splitting edges as long as your work with the stones was done correctly.

 

[chococrazy]

Me too. I find that I make my knives duller with 0.3 micron chromium oxide after 1 micron diamond spray?!? At least I think they are duller after, but I haven't ruled out the possibility that they're actually sharper but just a different kind of sharp, if that makes any sense. But if anything, a sharper, smoother, more refined edge finished on 0.3 mic CrO should perform push cuts better than an edge finished on 1 mic diamonds, and I find the opposite to be true in my case.

Sorry for hijacking. To your question, I undoubtedly believe and find that the sharper an edge is before stropping, the more it will benefit from stropping. Of course there are also a bunch of variables at play here, such as blade steel, stropping compound, stropping substrate, edge geometry...

You're polishing. Polishing so well that you edge is without micro serrations at all!
This makes it lose any and all bite, but gives you an extremely sharp edge (kind of like scalpel edges, but sharper, unless it's a flint/obsidian scalpel).
If you strop all the way to .25 micron you get an extremely polished edge. This benefits for shaving and stuff like that, not so much for things that need a toothy edge (rope cutting, etc). If you do this, and then put a coarse microbevel on it you get the sharpness of a polished edge, but the catch of a coarse.