Strops

S

snorkem

Joined
Aug 12, 2009
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I am finnaly deciding on strops within the next day or two. I have decided to get 2 large from Mr2blue. He is great to work with and ive heard great things about his strops. my question is will it be benificial to go with one haveing Cro2 from hand american and one with 1 micron diamond spray. Or should i have one with the diamond and leave the other bare?
 
My vote is for one diamond and one bare. Cro is messy and doesn't cut as quickly. Diamond is quicker and cleaner and is something that you just have to try to appreciate.
 
I have not had any luck with a bare strop. Maybe on simple carbon steels it works well but on today's high carbide volume steels it doesn't seem to do anything for me.

I went with 1 and 0.5 micron diamond spray for each of my Mr2Blue stops.
 
is 1200 grit to 1 micron to big of a jump or will that do, and also will i see i jump in edge performance from 1 micron to .5 microns?
 
A strop was originally intended to work the burr on a knife not to actually remove appreciable steel.

Unless you are gettig amazing results hand honing at 1200 grit, you will not gain any benefit from
using an ultra fine compound on a strop, IMO it would be a complete waste of money.
 
I don't know how the edge pro 800 grit stone compares to other stones but I can go from the EP 800 to the strop and get great results.

You can probably get away with just 1 micron as it makes a big improvement using it. The 0.5 micron isn't as big of a jump in improvement but it does make it noticeably sharper. The 1 micron will probably get you the sharpest knife you ever have had so it just depends on if you want to take the sickness a little further. I figure I am already paying shipping why not get a 12 carat bottle for ~$15 more. It is enough to last you many years if just using it for personal use.
 
What 1200 stone?

Going from 1200 to 14k is a bit of a jump but will still make slight improvements on the edge. The problem, you'll never see what 1 micron can do until you get some finer stones.
 
1200 dmt green stone, so your saying a finer stone will help me in the long run with stropping performence? some time later this year im going to get something finer because im gonna pick up a few straight razors and learn to sharpen those
 
You should probably look into high grit water stones, I had the chance to pick up a natural water stone and will probably never buy a syn again. I'm about 1 minute away from getting this one too.

If you get into razors you will without a doubt need a finer stone, the DMT 1200 can be used to SET bevels on a razor and for a razor to cleanly shave you need to be in the range of 20k+ grit. Some water stones, some diamond compound and some chromium oxide would get you set for sharpening razors.

The jump your trying to do now is like sharpening with 220 and trying to jump to 2000. When you skip less and progress more the grit you are using becomes more effective and leads to a sharper edge.
 
what about the dmt 8000 grit extra extra fine? will that work from there to a strop, the reason im apprehensive about a waterstone is that they require lapping to keep them flat and a lot more maitnence. more maitnence= more money.
 
ive been looking at some combination waterstones, would a 1200/8000 water stone then go to 1 micron strop produce a suitable razor edge for shaving? i am not looking to buy now, but in the future when i pick up a straight razor i will
 
If you strop an edge that was properly and accurately polished with an 8000 grit water stone, it will dull it somewhat by rounding over the edge a little. You may prefer it that way. Strops give a little while stones stay hard and crisp. The stone should get you to a slightly better edge.
 
i made my decision, i am going to buy the 8000 grit dmt aligner stone and a strop with 1 micron compound
 
If you want a cheap way to build a bridge between the high grit stone & strop.
Go to lowes, and ask for buffing compound it should range from 1-5 with 5 being the finest.
I use #4,#5 to build a bridge, as these are pretty high micron compounds, and remove a lot of metal. If you have a cheap 1.2k stone I'd spring for the #3 compound also, but don't go lower than that.
I use mine on leather, but cardboard will work fine, as it applies pretty thickly.
 
my question is knife outlet stated that going from 1200 dmt to 8000 dmt to 1 micron diamond leather strop would dull my edge from 8000 to the strop. 8000 is 3 microns and the strop is 1 micron, how is this possible? i think i will see i noticable edge improvement, i hope im right
 
snorkem said:
my question is knife outlet stated that going from 1200 dmt to 8000 dmt to 1 micron diamond leather strop would dull my edge from 8000 to the strop. 8000 is 3 microns and the strop is 1 micron, how is this possible? i think i will see i noticable edge improvement, i hope im right
Click to expand...

No you should see noticable edge improvement 3 micron to 1micron is not a big jump at all.
 
You should also buy the 3 micron DMT compound and put it on balsa wood for use after the DMT EEF.


Proper use of DMT products means using all of them, technically you should be using the 6 micron compound after the 1200 stone then the EEF then the 3 micron compound then the 1 micron.
 
Knife Outlet said:
If you strop an edge that was properly and accurately polished with an 8000 grit water stone, it will dull it somewhat by rounding over the edge a little. You may prefer it that way. Strops give a little while stones stay hard and crisp. The stone should get you to a slightly better edge.
Click to expand...

So everyone that uses a strop as a final step is doing it wrong? And why would anyone prefer to dull their edge?

I'm curious if we should all be trading in our strops for 8000 grit waterstones? And what about those who use MDF with diamonds instead of leather? It seems like I have read more than one person having better luck with leather over MDF so there must be something good about leather.
 
FlaMtnBkr said:
So everyone that uses a strop as a final step is doing it wrong? And why would anyone prefer to dull their edge?

I'm curious if we should all be trading in our strops for 8000 grit waterstones? And what about those who use MDF with diamonds instead of leather? It seems like I have read more than one person having better luck with leather over MDF so there must be something good about leather.
Click to expand...

I'm one of them. After another week of tinkering with various surfaces (e.g. MDF, rock hard felt, legal pad carboard, card stock, bovine leather, horsehide leather) and finishes (e.g. 1 mic diamond spray, 0.3 mic chromium oxide powder, plain leather), I can still safely say that bovine leather with 1 mic diamond gives me a noticably sharper edge than anything else. So many variables, though: blade steel, last grit finished with before strop, angle consistency, start with even bevels?, pressure, application of compound i.e light, medium, saturated....
 
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