- Joined
- Sep 20, 2015
- Messages
- 8,397
I mean I can make it up as I go along but . . .
First off I am a "no strop kind of guy" though I have been stropping sharp things for about fourty years .
My greatest satisfaction is when I use a sharpening jig (woodworking or knife) and after the last stone the edge takes one or two curls off a hair that is still in my arm (((what? I need something sharper than this ?)).
However . . .
I can sort of see the Refine The Apex For More Longevity argument . . . I guess .
I read the book on power sharpening on paper wheels and what not and the "negative bur" thing and all .
So a year or so ago (or maybe two or three now_) I started to flirt with the idea of maybe someday thinking about maybe orderng a felt wheel .
Then I thought : this is dumb because even though I have a paper wheel I never ever use it and am totally ecstatic about the edges off my hand powered sharpening jigs .
Hmmmmmm
Then I go looking for something I can load into my Edge Pro Apex that is felt .
nothing
So I put hard felt cloth squares in my shopping cart and they sit there for months .
I see a jeweler's hard felt polishinng wheel for ! ! ! ! $17 ! ! ! !
This relatively huge thing is looking pretty good next to a few little hunks of cloth that I am going to have to use to make a thing for my edge pro .
Heck , I'll just strop on the side of the wheel while it lays on the bench .
Nooooooo that's not what I want .
Having seen these sorts of felt wheels in work shops I know they are pretty darn dense and smoothish / not nappy / hairy .
Then I see Jende has produced a "Hard Felt" "stone" for my Edge Pro Apex .
Boom !
In the cart .
Where it sat for another six months .
Why ? Well it is this tiny little strip of felt for like $23 when I can get this ginormous wheel for $17 . . . the price still has not gone up for years now . (?)
Little voice saying : Why do you "need " this ? $23 worth of extra edge longevity ?
unlikely .
Then I run out of anything knife like to order to feed the monster . . .
Bottom line at the bottom :
I have it now .
It is not firm and flat like the hard wheel I mentioned above .
It is harry and rough and shag carpet like .
It makes a rough side bovine leather strop made from a remnant from Tandy's Leather look like a sheet of glass .
Seriously now . . . do I take this to one of my bench grinders and smooth it off ?
Do I load it up as is with some stropping stuff ?
The fuzz / hairs are so long I will be stropping the side of the knife (maybe the corners of the spine of the blade ) with every stroke .
((there might be a slight exaggeration in there some where but not much)) .
This is going to make my edges better ? Or just round them off so they look like the spine of the blade in my Spyderco Slym ?
Shall I just save this for my retractable Stanley box knife at work (where I have done the vast majority of any serious stropping in those forty years I mentioned above ) ?
First off I am a "no strop kind of guy" though I have been stropping sharp things for about fourty years .
My greatest satisfaction is when I use a sharpening jig (woodworking or knife) and after the last stone the edge takes one or two curls off a hair that is still in my arm (((what? I need something sharper than this ?)).
However . . .
I can sort of see the Refine The Apex For More Longevity argument . . . I guess .
I read the book on power sharpening on paper wheels and what not and the "negative bur" thing and all .
So a year or so ago (or maybe two or three now_) I started to flirt with the idea of maybe someday thinking about maybe orderng a felt wheel .
Then I thought : this is dumb because even though I have a paper wheel I never ever use it and am totally ecstatic about the edges off my hand powered sharpening jigs .
Hmmmmmm
Then I go looking for something I can load into my Edge Pro Apex that is felt .
nothing
So I put hard felt cloth squares in my shopping cart and they sit there for months .
I see a jeweler's hard felt polishinng wheel for ! ! ! ! $17 ! ! ! !
This relatively huge thing is looking pretty good next to a few little hunks of cloth that I am going to have to use to make a thing for my edge pro .
Heck , I'll just strop on the side of the wheel while it lays on the bench .
Nooooooo that's not what I want .
Having seen these sorts of felt wheels in work shops I know they are pretty darn dense and smoothish / not nappy / hairy .
Then I see Jende has produced a "Hard Felt" "stone" for my Edge Pro Apex .
Boom !
In the cart .
Where it sat for another six months .
Why ? Well it is this tiny little strip of felt for like $23 when I can get this ginormous wheel for $17 . . . the price still has not gone up for years now . (?)
Little voice saying : Why do you "need " this ? $23 worth of extra edge longevity ?
unlikely .
Then I run out of anything knife like to order to feed the monster . . .
Bottom line at the bottom :
I have it now .
It is not firm and flat like the hard wheel I mentioned above .
It is harry and rough and shag carpet like .
It makes a rough side bovine leather strop made from a remnant from Tandy's Leather look like a sheet of glass .
Seriously now . . . do I take this to one of my bench grinders and smooth it off ?
Do I load it up as is with some stropping stuff ?
The fuzz / hairs are so long I will be stropping the side of the knife (maybe the corners of the spine of the blade ) with every stroke .
((there might be a slight exaggeration in there some where but not much)) .
This is going to make my edges better ? Or just round them off so they look like the spine of the blade in my Spyderco Slym ?
Shall I just save this for my retractable Stanley box knife at work (where I have done the vast majority of any serious stropping in those forty years I mentioned above ) ?
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