Tell me if im just screwing up

L

LCDCC/O

Joined
May 12, 2009
Messages
9
I use my stones all the time very well and i wanted to try my hand at stroping (before i read anything on here). So i used an old smooth belt and messed with an old knife that i had take through my usual sharpening process. At first it seemed sharper, but then i went more with some white polish compound on it.
Now it feels dull, still slices paper smooth but wont shave hair anymore as it would before.
 
One possibility is that you are using too much pressure when you strop and the leather is wrapping around your edge and rounding it. Go back and sharpen again to insure nice flat sides for your edge. Then strop lightly. Hold your blade fairly flat on the strop. You don't want the strop angle to be quite as high as your honing angle. The strop will bend to make up the difference.

You can also strop too much if your strop is soft. With a soft strop it will always somewhat wrap around your edge. If your steel is resistant to wear (like some of the higher grade stainless) it can take a lot of stropping to make any difference. Make sure you do most of the work with your stones and then do only a little stropping.

With fancy stainless I find I need a harder/sharper stropping compound. I get some diamond paste from a rock shop. With diamond paste on a hard smooth strop I get good results stropping stainless. I like to strop on a sheet of photo paper with diamond paste (about .5 to 1.0 micron grit).
 
Try applying your white compound on a scrap of manilla-folder cardboard, or an index-card.
Then place the 'card-strop' on a HARD, SMOOTH surface, like a kitchen counter, and go.
The card-strop on a hard surface will not "give" and round over the edge, no matter what your pressure.

Also, applying a blue or black Magic-Marker to the knife edge bevel before stropping will tell you whether your angle is correct, or not. Just strop a couple of strokes and look for the marker to be removed from the part of the edge you 'think' you're stroping.
I found at first that I was holding too shallow an angle, and not stropping the actual edge at all, but rather the shoulder of the bevel.
The Magic_marker doesn't lie.

After you're done, a little alcohol will remove any remaining marker from the blade.
 
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