Stropping gear for Magnacut and other 60+ steels

jacobconroy75

jacobconroy75

"Brain Cloud" is real.
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I've recently become a Magnacut junky with a smidge of 20CV and 390 thrown in for good measure. My stropping block is old and uses the "crayon" media sticks. It seems like it simply won't cut these harder steels. Could be loaded up, or it could be old technology.

So, I'm hunting for a new stropping setup. Maybe one with these new-fangled "diamond pastes"?

Can anyone recommend a setup? I'd like a strop that's 3 X 10 inches minimum. Also, I'm not sure that stropping with multiple grits interests me. One grit-to-rule-them-all would be better. Is that possible?

I'd love to hear about what works for others.
 
Make or buy a strop of your preferred size. There are endless places to get strops from, just look for the size and surface you prefer. I like smooth leather as opposed to the suede type. I use 1 micron diamond. There are plenty of choices of what kind, I think what I've been using is from Wicked Edge but I may try others sometime.

I have never looked back at conventional stropping compounds after switching to diamond.
 
Wandering_About said:
Make or buy a strop of your preferred size. There are endless places to get strops from, just look for the size and surface you prefer. I like smooth leather as opposed to the suede type. I use 1 micron diamond. There are plenty of choices of what kind, I think what I've been using is from Wicked Edge but I may try others sometime.

I have never looked back at conventional stropping compounds after switching to diamond.
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Great tip. I’ve never tried smooth-side. Only suede.
 
Here's mine. It's a 1x2 board from some children's bed I found by the curb. The handle was shaped on a belt sander. Veg tan leather, smooth side up. Glued to the board.

Since this is my strop everything strop. Particularly kitchen knives. I use Semichrome paste polish as the compound.

Something that's rarely touched on. Instead of running the blade across the strop. You run the strop over the blade. That's why some strops are made with a handle. So the knife is held with the left hand. With the strop in the right. Run it from heel to tip of the blade. None of that running the knife across the strop. You'll get a better feeling of the edge angle. Moving the strop verses moving the knife.


 
Grasshopperglock said:
Here's mine. It's a 1x2 board from some children's bed I found by the curb. The handle was shaped on a belt sander. Veg tan leather, smooth side up. Glued to the board.

Since this is my strop everything strop. Particularly kitchen knives. I use Semichrome paste polish as the compound.

Something that's rarely touched on. Instead of running the blade across the strop. You run the strop over the blade. That's why some strops are made with a handle. So the knife is held with the left hand. With the strop in the right. Run it from heel to tip of the blade. None of that running the knife across the strop. You'll get a better feeling of the edge angle. Moving the strop verses moving the knife.


Click to expand...
Moving the strop in interesting. For now, I'm only stropping folders with 3.5 inch blades and under. This means I might need a small strop to give your method a try too. Thank you. I have never heard of such a thing.
 
jacobconroy75 said:
Moving the strop in interesting. For now, I'm only stropping folders with 3.5 inch blades and under. This means I might need a small strop to give your method a try too. Thank you. I have never heard of such a thing.
Click to expand...

Build a strop that's one inch wide. At least 8 inches long. Hobby stores sell leather.

And Yeah. Run the strop against the knife. Not the knife against the strop. You can feel if the strop is flat to the edge angle as you move it along the blade.
 
Grasshopperglock said:
Build a strop that's one inch wide. At least 8 inches long. Hobby stores sell leather.

And Yeah. Run the strop against the knife. Not the knife against the strop. You can feel if the strop is flat to the edge angle as you move it along the blade.
Click to expand...
Trying to find someone local (or a hobby shop) that could sell me some leather would probably be more time and work than ordering a completed strop. But, maybe I'll order some leather. Then I can make one of every flavor of strop. :) I have a wood shop, so that would be easy.

A couple of questions for you experienced folks:

1. What is the best sort of leather to buy?
2. What is the pro/con between using suede or hard-backed leather?
3. What is the best type of non-stinky adhesive for gluing leather to wood (I'm thinking oak or maybe PTFE for dimensional stability)?

You really have my brain working overtime now that I'm thinking about having a small strop and keeping the knife in a single position. That might be what I've been doing wrong all this time. I strop while watching TV at night and it would be easier to keep a tiny strop on my end table than a great big one.

Been using one of these for many years. Bulky.

IMG_0841.jpeg

This is what I've been eyeballing for a year. Haven't pulled the trigger yet though. It's 3 X 12 (I think). I planned to hold it like a violin when stropping to keep my 50 year old eyes close to the action. Probably a really dumb idea.

IMG_0456.jpeg

Now I'm looking at "pocket strops". This is why I'm here. Searching for ideas that I simply haven't had on my own!

I could Google all these things, but it's more fun to ask the community about their preferences.
 
Hobby lobby sells a small sheet of thin weight, veg tanned cow leather. Which will work fine for stropping. Felt side up or skin side down is a preference. As for the type of other leathers. Start with cow. Unless you really feel like spending more money.

I used 3M, 'High Strength 90', spray adhesive. (Only because I had some for a while. The same can is probably $30 today.) Any decent contact cement will work.


You can use a range of common compounds. Aluminum mag wheel polish, jewelry paste, polishing wheel compound.
 
jacobconroy75 said:
I've recently become a Magnacut junky with a smidge of 20CV and 390 thrown in for good measure. My stropping block is old and uses the "crayon" media sticks. It seems like it simply won't cut these harder steels. Could be loaded up, or it could be old technology.

So, I'm hunting for a new stropping setup. Maybe one with these new-fangled "diamond pastes"?

Can anyone recommend a setup? I'd like a strop that's 3 X 10 inches minimum. Also, I'm not sure that stropping with multiple grits interests me. One grit-to-rule-them-all would be better. Is that possible?

I'd love to hear about what works for others.
Click to expand...
You want a hardish substrate, so leather on wood, or even directly on wood, with 1um or .5um diamond spray. Northwest Knife Guy is awesome and does strops and spray. Other sprays I have personally used and like are the Gunny Juice and Stroppy Stuff. I don't like the Bark River stuff I got as much.

I have a paddle style strop, a block strop, and some blanks of various materials I use in a guided sharpening system. The paddle strop is nice because it is just a good size for most knives (for me personally) and has two sides. It sounds like the size would be a little small for you (and you don't need two sides), so another option may be better. For what it is worth, I only really use one side (as you can see from the attached, PM2 for size reference).

I find the diamond spray to be pretty useful to have on hand, actually. In addition to the main job of stropping, you can spray a little on some cardboard and use it to polish PB washers. You can also add a little to the pivot of pliers or similar tools, and then flush, for quick break in periods.

7AC737C0-F837-4C04-AE39-ADA595522078.jpegE3C2F2EB-893A-462A-9A88-41B3BD5B2F19.jpegC39A3C89-9C99-4DCA-83A3-53763493F0A4.jpeg
 
I buy vegetable tanned leather from the river site. It can often use a little leveling after you stick it on. An alternative is balsa wood, in thin sheets of 1/16-1/8" at the desired width. It can also use a little very light sanding or planing.

I use good plywood or solid wood from the scrap bin, as it only has to be 3" wide unless you are doing some wide woodworking tools. Make it flat, and seal it with Varathane or some tough coating, because changing the leather or balsa can tear up the surface of bare wood.

I hold it together with double-sided carpet tape. Modern carpet tape is really strong, you don't need anything stronger.

These materials are cheap, and beyond cutting the wood base all you need is a utility blade. If you only want one or two, and that's all most people need, you can buy good ones online.

The abrasive you load it with is dependent on the grit of the last stone you used. When I am sharpening lower vanadium, softer steels, I use a hard Arkansas stone (about 10 microns?) followed by a strop loaded with 5 micron diamond paste. That leaves a sharp edge and a shiny bevel.

With diamond stones, I use the same procedure of following the stone with a strop at about half the micron size of the stone. Most of the consumer-grade diamond stone makers have a stone at about 1,000 to 1,200 grit, so my 5 micron strop gets used a lot. These diamond compounds are aggressive as Hell so you should keep the number of strokes lower than with AO or SC compounds. The 5'er knocks off a burr in one or two light passes.

If I use a finer finishing stone, I use a finer strop. I could probably get away with just the 5 micron on balsa wood. I like the firm feel of the balsa, and the fast cutting power of the Kent 5 micron gunpowder. I think finer strops start to get more cosmetic than practical, but guys are doing miraculous things with their 1 micron strops! I couldn't stop once I saw the brilliant finishes, achieved in record times. You can see (under light magnification) the change from5-3-2-1. They don't feel any different than the HS pastes, but the diamonds work on anything and that is not true of the HS pastes.
 
Lotsa good info. Thanks All.

I'm starting to realize that I don't know much about sharpening. I've been using a Wicked Edge for many years and simply go through the grits through 1000/ceramics/leather hones-dry (stropping).

With MC I've been stopping at 600 grit and then leather honing on the WE. Very toothy and sharp. I could always mount up the knife to strop it again, but that's kindof a pain. The idea is to hand-strop on the couch at the end of the day instead.

That said, would it be silly to hand-strop with 1 micron after 600 grit diamond? Maybe I should start going back up through the grits?
 
You can strop with 1 micron straight from a 600 grit stone, but keep in mind that if you strop too much you'll lose the toothy bite of the edge because the 1 micron will polish the edge over time. Keep in mind there are different goals of stropping. Some use it to polish an edge, some use it for final deburring and to put a touch of refinement on an edge without putting too much polish. I like the 1 micron diamond as it cuts pretty quickly for final deburring and refining. I don't do too much stropping, 10-15 strokes per side on a strop is plenty. If an edge needs more than that, it needs a stone, to me.
 
Alberta Ed said:
I haven’t found stropping to be very effective on super steels. High carbon steel with low carbide content seems to respond better to stropping.
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Diamond emulsion for powdered steels. Just about any metal polish on forged.

However, I have to give Semichrome some credit. You can feel the grit in it. How hard the grit is. I don't know.

But I'm usually stropping a kitchen knife after it was ran over a 3000grit ceramic hone.
 
Grasshopperglock said:
Diamond emulsion for powdered steels. Just about any metal polish on forged.

However, I have to give Semichrome some credit. You can feel the grit in it. How hard the grit is. I don't know.

But I'm usually stropping a kitchen knife after it was ran over a 3000grit ceramic hone.
Click to expand...
Simichrome uses aluminum oxide, which would be ~2100 Knoop hardness or so, as compared to vanadium carbides in high-wear steel, at around 2800 Knoop.

SiC compound is about ~2600 Knoop or so.
CBN is around ~4500 Knoop.
Diamond is at the top of the hardness scale as the reference for comparison, @ 7000 Knoop.
 
jacobconroy75 said:
I've recently become a Magnacut junky with a smidge of 20CV and 390 thrown in for good measure. My stropping block is old and uses the "crayon" media sticks. It seems like it simply won't cut these harder steels. Could be loaded up, or it could be old technology.

So, I'm hunting for a new stropping setup. Maybe one with these new-fangled "diamond pastes"?

Can anyone recommend a setup? I'd like a strop that's 3 X 10 inches minimum. Also, I'm not sure that stropping with multiple grits interests me. One grit-to-rule-them-all would be better. Is that possible?

I'd love to hear about what works for others.
Click to expand...
 
I use the Venev Diamond Stropping pastes in 14 micron and 3 micron on my strops for Magnacut, S90V, CPM 20CV, Elmax, CruWear and other more simple steels. Works great and they have a ton of grits to choose from, all the way down to .5 micron. I get some leather, cut it and glue it onto wood the size/length/width I want. When it's dried, I smear the Venev stuff onto the leather evenly with a popsicle stick and then use a heat gun to melt the waxy carrier so it soaks into the leather. Re apply as needed, but I found it lasted for several months of use. I made some Shechita/Chalef Kosher Slaughtering knives in S90V and the Venev diamond paste did a great job, even on the 18" long blades. The coarser compound helps get back to sharp quick and the finer grits refine it. Don't be afraid to go low grit with the strop! The 14 micron is around a 1000 grit and worked pretty quickly on many steels. Other guys I know use the 20 or 40 grit to really get an edge back quickly, remove chips, convex a flat bevel, etc. I will probably do up another strop with 40 micron and 1 micron so I have most ends of the spectrum covered!
 
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