Stropping

H

HMC

Joined
Jun 29, 2007
Messages
147
John thinks I'm insane for all my knives now:rolleyes:. He taught me to sharpen, & even recommended an angle guide. That all works great, but how do you strop a knife properly:confused::o? I tried on a $5 knife & just made it worse.
 
I am sure you will have a lot of advice on this subject.

I use a low angle. Match the angle of the sharpening and then go a bit lower. Edge trailing motion. Start on the strop and at the end of the stroke stop and lift the blade off the strop without increasing or decreasing the angle. Use the same angle for the entire stroke. I strop a number of times and then flip and do the other side.
 
If you are going to learn, you should train yourself right off of the bat to use this important move. Start your stroke with the blade flat to the leather and lift it to the angle you want as you are making your stroke and then train yourself to lower your blade back flat and stop moving your knife before you lift it off of the strop. If you don't do this, you will develop a bad habbit of raising the angle too high before you lift your knife off of the leather, and this will just round your edge.
 
Both are good advice, in my opinion. That's how I do mine. Many light strokes will work, a few heavy pressure ones will not. Not for me, anyway.
 
Good advice, light and gentle. Keep the angle slightly less than the primary grind, or else stropping will round the edge. You might want to pick up some CrO paste, that helps also.
 
Many light strokes will work, a few heavy pressure ones will not.
Click to expand...
Let's assume that you have an edge that you've finished sharpening with a Sharpmaker (through the fine rods). Let's also assume that your knife blade is no longer than your strop is wide (so that with a single pass you can polish the entire length of the blade). And finally, let's assume that we'll count the two passes (one per side) as one stroke.

Can you tell me approximately how many strokes it would take to finish polishing a 1095 blade on a CrO-loaded strop please?
 
That depends entirely on how good your sharpening skills are. If you did a good job there should be no perceptible burr left on the blade, and it should cut hairs above the arm. In that case 1 stroke is all it takes to finish the edge if you care to. I consider the stropping finished when the edge can treetop hairs without much pulling, if it doesn't get there in 12 strokes I go back to the stones.
 
Like Yoda, if it takes me more than 10 strokes per side, I find that I'm usually flopping a burr (or creating one).
 
how do you strop a knife? mostly you don't. use a 1x4 penknife hard arkansas stone, translucent or black (solid shiny pure black).. as an easy method, for medium good edge,

or ascending grit waterstones, up to about 8-12K or so, for extreme edge..

or the diamond paste/abrasive film for equal or better..

or a full set of Shaptons, for all that can be done that I know of..

but strops are around razors for a particular reason, and it has a lot to do with the size and shape of the blade, and the sort of cutting that blade does. most knives aren't shaped to make using a strop convenient to the job. you'ld likely be better served by a high grade ceramic stick, or flat hone, than leather strap for the necessary clean up. if you have to use leather, or just want to, a strap about 1 1/4 of about 8-10 oz leather, properly oiled, waxed, saddle soaped, and then washed and conditioned.. is real fine.

many dress belts, if you'll get the lacquer off, work fine. if you happen to have a knife shaped properly and just like doing it, you can add abrasive pastes OR NOT, as you intend to remove metal or not.. not a thing wrong with a strop except it's more work than you have to do, most of the time.
 
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