Stropping

O

okBookGuy

Joined
Dec 29, 2005
Messages
145
I was sharpening my CVs last night (while watching Tx Tech slaughter my alma mater, Univ of Okla) when I thought I'd try stropping one of them to see if I improved the edge or not. NOT. I hadn't really done it before and was not sure of my technique.

My main question, however, is: does an old belt work as well as an actual
leather strop? I was mainly using the "inside" face of the belt (the side you don't see when you're wearing it). But then I experimented with the outside face of the belt too (the outside was smooth. The inside was rough).

NOTE: I first sharpened them on the "Sharp Maker".

Thanks.
 
Each to his own. Here's what I do: I have a piece of 6-7oz leather mounted on a block of wood. The leather is about 3" x 11". Smooth side up and charged with green chromium oxide.

The knife must start out coming from the Sharpmaker (or whatever) !sharp!. I find the edge and strop with light to medium pressure - about 10 to 15 times on one side, then I flip it and same on the other. I'm careful at the beginning of each stroke and I !stop! at the end of each and every stroke so as not to inadvertantly "roll" the edge when lifting the blade from the strop. Then I stroke about 5 times at a slightly steeper angle, and with !very! light pressure........very light. It works.

It's possible that your angle is too steep and you're actually dulling the edge during the stroke. Maybe too much pressure. Maybe the belt, since it is flexible, is rolling around the edge and dulling it, or at least preventing it from refining the edge.
 
What Stretch said except the leather on mine is rough side up. I use a Lansky system, but the principle is the same. The knives come out of the clamp 1000-grit sharp (I haven't gotten the 2000-grit hone to work right yet), and I give the edges a few strokes on a ceramic steel to get the wire as small and straight as possible before stropping.
 
Okay sounds good. I'm going to make one like that mounted on a wood strip for support. It looks like you're saying either side up is okay (rough or smooth side up).
 
On the other side of my strop is a piece of leather rough side up. I use that charged with green to polish out minor scratches on the blade and rub off flint-steel "spit" that sticks to the blade. I suppose either side would work - I use smooth, some use rough. You can try a two-sided beast like mine and see what makes you happy.

Here's a photo. Disregard the sandpaper, just the strop applies to you :D
ConvexSharpeningKit-01.jpg


Glue it down with contact cement or yellow/white glue. Both work fine, but you'll need to clamp for an hour or so with the yellow glue. If you do that, make sure to use a board over the top of the leather to spread clamping pressure.
I made a mistake earlier. The leather on my strops is 8-9oz, not 6-7. Either would work though...I would think.
 
Stretch, thank you very much for the help. I'm gonna make one like you show. Looks just like what I've been looking for.

One last issue, does it help to strop my Schrade stainless blades the way it does stropping my case CVs?

Thanks again.
 
Well, not being an accomplished expert, I can only say this: I strop my stainless blades and it helps them just as much as the carbons and semi-stainless. The only blades I haven;t been stropping are the S30V and my one D2. Well, I stropped a little on the S30V the other night..... not enough to make a noticeable difference. It just seems like those two steels are so tough that, 1) the strop doesn;t have much effect on them or, 2) they perform better coming straight from the hone. Now, don;t hold me to this because, as I said, I'm no expert and my technique could be interfering with my ability to strop those two steels. I do know this though, give me a dull or otherwise unsexy Bark River convex edge, and I can hand you back a screaming sharp knife! ((( :D ))) And...it's the final stropping that makes it scream so shrilly!
 
I keep my stropping a bit simpler.

I bought some scrap leather from Tandy. I got a bunch for $2.00. I cut it into strop sized chunks.

I then purchased one stick of white polishing compound and one of red from Sears. They are under $3.00 a piece.

I crayon the compound onto the rough side of the leather. I use the strops on top of my workbench. I do not mount them.

I then strop basically the same as was posted. Using the same angle that I sharpened to I methodically stroke edge trailing along the leather making sure to not raise the blade. I start with the edge bevel on the leather and end with the bevel on the leather. Like was said just stop the stroke. Do not lift the blade.

I start with the white and stoke one side and then the other between 10 and 15 stokes per side. I then switch to the red.

I keep one strop for the white and one for the red.

From reading here and on another forum about sharpening there are any number of processes that will lead to a sharp blade. The one constant is practice and experience.
 
So, are you all saying that stropping is not used exclusively on convex edges? StretchNM, with your setup, especially with the mousepad(s), I assumed you were creating/maintaining convex edges. If some of you strop beveled edges, is the only difference the pressure (or lack thereof) applied? I thought the sandpaper technique and "trailing" the edge resulted in a convex edge. Sorry if these are the questions of a n00b, but that's what I still am!
 
DainBramage said:
So, are you all saying that stropping is not used exclusively on convex edges? StretchNM, with your setup, especially with the mousepad(s), I assumed you were creating/maintaining convex edges. If some of you strop beveled edges, is the only difference the pressure (or lack thereof) applied? I thought the sandpaper technique and "trailing" the edge resulted in a convex edge. Sorry if these are the questions of a n00b, but that's what I still am!
Click to expand...

I only strop for beveled edges, I don't even know the proper stropping technique for convex edges. So yeah, stropping works for regular V grind edges.

Welcome to the forums:).
 
Stropping on leather will work with all edges. It's a polishing of the edge after honing, whether it's convex or v-grind. I don;t strop my S30V and D2 mainly because I'm not quite the expert to get good results. The S30V is wicked sharp from the hone and the D2....well, the D2 is just D2 to me.

I would NOT try to sharpen a V-grind edge by trailing it on sandpaper, especially with the paper on a mousepad or leather. That seems to me to be the perfect way to dull the edge (unless you kept going and going, then you'd eventually have a convex grind and that would be ok). You could sharpen a V-grind on sandpaper, if it was mounted on glass or something else nice and flat, and you pushed the edge into the hone (as opposed to stropping it). I do my woodworking chisels on a 1/4" of plate glass, on which are mounted 6 grades of wet/dry, starting at 220.

No, the convex ground edge is not left to stropping alone, DainBramage. Usually, after some light use, all I need to do is strop and the edge is back to sharp. But after hard use, I go to honing on the sandpaper (edge trailing) before turning to the strop. The technique for sharpening a convex edge and stropping a convex edge are the same.... at least the motions you go through are the same. I'm trying to explain a difference between sharpening and stropping, but really, they are both part of the sharpening process.
 
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