stropping- not on leather

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sweet_hitch-hiker

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Apr 12, 2009
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Hi, I've heard of stropping on things other than leather. newspaper and cardboard for example. have you guys tried this? if so whatre you results? i'm sure it's not as good as leather and compound but i was just wondering what your experiences are.
 
I guess you could say it works but using the correct tool for the job works a whole lot better.
 
It works, but not as well as leather. MDF works well with compound IMO as well.

Leather still works best though.

I have used cardboard (the kind off the back of a notebook) in a pinch though, and its better than nothing.
 
I've never tried it. I generally stick with leather.

I've heard that using a sort of 'trough' cut into a piece of softwood and loaded up with honing compound is a great trick for hand-honing gouges, but I've never tried it myself...
 
You name it and I have probably stropped with it and is now the reason I use leather with diamond compound, bare strop leather, and MDF with compound. Other items can and will work but the results are not the same.
 
You can put stop compound on paper. I use Mother's Mag polish, on paper you run through it a lot quicker because you're replacing the paper pretty frequently.
 
I sharpened my girlfriend's dull kitchen knives the other day on the back of a porcelain plate and finished off with a newspaper — hairpoppin'!

It works, but of course leather is way better and with leather it takes much less effort to get it right. Normally I hone on leather or waterstones, but I thought it fun to try something else; so now I know newspaper works like everybody says it does.
 
Ive used the manilla type file folders with a bit of flitz before . Worked well..

I like to load my leather strop with Flitz does very well,,,,
 
so would you say newspaper works better or worse than cardboard from experience? i know leather>*, and i know it isnt expensive, but i'm in a pinch money wise and trying to get my blades as sharp as possible

edit: also this is for softer metals like 14c28n, 440c, vg10 maybe. not like s90v or zdp or anything like that
 
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I've used the green compound on Manila folders and carboard tablet backing. Worked just fine, but is wears out fast. I could get mirror finishes on the edge.

I much prefer leather backed with wood, however, cardboard will do in a pinch.
 
Jup. I just used cardboard 20 mins ago and it worked fine. (I dont know about newspaper.. never tried that)

s_f
 
I have experimented with harder/smoother/stiffer strops and diamond paste in order to get the finest edge with the minimum amount of edge rounding off. I have used rather stiff plastic View Graph sheets stapled to a pad of paper. While I think the smoothness and stiffness matched my intent I think the combination of hardness and smoothness of the material allows the abrasive to move too much. What seems to work well is computer photo paper on a pad of paper. This is smooth and somewhat stiff, but holds grit better than plastic.

Leather and horsehide works well if you don't press too hard.

PS. I am mostly fighting with alloys like D2 or 440A that don't ordinarily take as fine an edge as I prefer.
 
I personally don't care what steel it is —*it's always a process to sharpen which ever way you look at it. I never used compound on newspaper and that worked for me.
 
Most shinny papers (coated stock) use a clay solution pressed onto the surface of the paper. Magazine paper, magazine covers, phone book covers, manila envelops, etc., all have a very finely powdered clay pressed into their surfaces. This clay is a abrasive fine enough for stropping and works well as long as the paper is supported. It doesn't cut as quickly as dedicated abrasives but it does work better than non-coated stock.

Cardboard and newspaper have natural silicates present in the fibers and these will help in the stropping process. Again, not AS effective as good quality stropping leather with LOTS of silicates, but enough to make it worth the effort.

Silicates are one of the most common naturally occuring minerals on the planet, and you can find them in a lot of different things. At your next picnic try stropping on a carrot or a turkey drumstick... :)

Stitchawl
 
I personally haven't tried it yet but I have heard that you can strop a high quality blade on very hard, extremely ultra fine grit stones. I've heard you can do it by skewing the blade across the stone with backward strokes just like you would with a leather strop. I've seen it talked about on a couple of videos where they are sharpening convex edges.

But I had also heard that you can indeed strop a blade on a very hard Arkansas stone for instance or something extremely fine like one of those super fine Shapton stones.
 
I glued a 1"x 6" piece of mouse pad to a block of wood and loaded it with white rouge. It works like a charm.
 
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