To all you strop guys?

R

realitycheck

Joined
Nov 24, 2007
Messages
313
Alright, you sharpen your knife you strop it to the level of sharpness that you personally like. You go out and use your knife you cut all the things you normally do, it gets below your personal level of sharpness that you like to keep your knives at. You bring it back in and put it on your strop and you bring it back to your razor sharpness. You use the knife and repeat.
At what point does the strop not work to bring it back to razor sharpness?
In other words when do you have to go back to the stone or sharpmaker or whatever you use to bring a burr back up, because the strop wont bring the edge back anymore?
Thanks in advance for all your help,
Chet
 
After time the edge will round over because it has been flattened too much from cutting things. If you see small nicks or flat spots in the edge its usually time to go back to the fine stone. Depending on the steel it can be stropped many times before needing to go back to the stone and most of the time I just use my UF ceramic then re-strop. Every time you do a strop touch-up the edge will be slightly less sharp but still sharper than if you left it alone. Really it comes down to the steel and how much you have used it.
 
I have a David Mosier folder of S30V i have used daily for 6 months and all I do is strop it. It is still razor sharp. I guess there will come a time when it needs a sharpen but not close yet.
 
Knifenut thanks for the help on that. Thats what I was wondering, if I could just hit it real quick on the sharpmaker about ten times on each side. Then just strop it out to razor sharp on my paper wheels.
I noticed this problem with not getting as sharp as before like you said when I tried to restrop a boker trance I just got last week after cutting up some cardboard with it. It got sharp again but it didnt get as sharp as it was before. I think because the 440c is softer than say s30v or vg-10, it doesnt have as long of a life span on stropping before bringing back a small burr. I think my vg-10 or s30v will have more times on the strop before it needs a burr again. Am I correct so far in my logic?
 
Depends on how the knife is used. A gentleman's folder that only sees light use trimming loose threads or opening the mail may get by for a long time before needing a full sharpening again. But use it one time for scraping rust and paint off parts or chopping weeds around rocks, and stropping alone is impractical.
 
The better the steel the less it will degrade while cutting so the less touch-up it will need. I don't like to think of the burr to much, you must understand what's happening on the microscopic level to really understand sharpening. Cardboard is really a tuff materal and can do some serious damage to a edge, I am suprised that you could strop it back to a shaving level. You will most likely see the best results with S30V as VG-10 and 440C don't do well on things like cardboard.
 
Depends on the steel and how it's being used - and how frequently it's being stropped.

My EDC S30V Sebenza will come back 10 or 15 times on green compound with no problem. I'm talking about using the knife for a week or two, and letting the edge fall off significantly.
 
You can often strop in place of a steel without using a stone or rod.
 
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Depends upon the knife's steel, what is being cut (cardboard really rips up an edge!) and how hard you force the knife instead of cut with it. Different people have differing ways of dealing with their edges too. Besides stropping, I like to use a borosilicate glass rod on my EDC, the same way I do with my kitchen knives. (I prefer the glass over a smooth steel.) I 'steel' (with glass) my edges every couple of uses, strop with chromium oxide on a smooth strop perhaps every other week, and use stones every 4-6 months or less. The kitchen knives get stoned using a Sharpmaker. All my other edges get done on an EdgePro.

Stitchawl
 
I have been stropping my 13c27 tramontina Chef's knife after every use and it is still able to shave after 2 months so far, so I guess it's very effective. When there are chips in the edge, I would have to go back to stones.
 
Roger999 said:
I have been stropping my 13c27 tramontina Chef's knife after every use and it is still able to shave after 2 months so far, so I guess it's very effective. When there are chips in the edge, I would have to go back to stones.
Click to expand...

Roger, where did you get your stropping equipment from?

Sent an email to Rustic forge with no response, and a bit hesitant to buy 'quality' off ebay.

thanks mate,,
Daniel
 
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