What to do next after DMT XF?

E

ecfc

Joined
Jul 2, 2012
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So I am ordering some new stones, DMT XC-XF, and I was wondering what would be the next step after the XF. I have all three of the Bark River strop pastes and was wondering if stropping with those would be the right step or should I get the UF Spyderco, the XXF DMT, or the 6, 3, and 1 Micron DMT strop pastes or anything else? Also I strop on hard wood and was wondering if that was ok. I don't have enough money to buy 4 leather strops and the Bark River compounds are very hard and I have to push down on the balsa too hard and it gets dented. Thanks in advance!
 
I used their tapes before and didn't care for them, I'm not a fan of tapes, they get cut and ripped up too easily and they are too expensive.
 
The answer is, it depends.

Test it out and see what happens.

A lot will depend on the steel you are sharpening, the break-in of the diamonds, and how well you can use them.
 
Strop lightly on 3000 grit 3m trizact pad then strop with finest compound you don't want to eliminate all the tooth that's how I do it but I'm no pro
 
I would use Mother's Mag polish to strop on:thumbup:. Then bare leather if you have it, but that's just my preference.
 
What I ended up deciding to do was get an XXF, hand american's strop pastes 1, .5, .25 microns, and 4 leather strops so I could finish on an unloaded strop. Any recommendations for relatively cheap strops?
 
ecfc said:
What I ended up deciding to do was get an XXF, hand american's strop pastes 1, .5, .25 microns, and 4 leather strops so I could finish on an unloaded strop. Any recommendations for relatively cheap strops?
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If you're getting Hand American, might as well buy their honing base($49.95), 3 balsa wood pads($8.95 each), and 1 leather horse mag pad($19.95). Though if you want "cheap" cheap, 2 double-sided leather strop paddles ought to do you good.
 
Noctis3880 said:
If you're getting Hand American, might as well buy their honing base($49.95), 3 balsa wood pads($8.95 each), and 1 leather horse mag pad($19.95). Though if you want "cheap" cheap, 2 double-sided leather strop paddles ought to do you good.
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I decided to stay away from the double sided strops because they may lead to contamination.
 
ecfc said:
I decided to stay away from the double sided strops because they may lead to contamination.
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A good choice, as I have several magnetic leather pads and keep each one in a separate ziplock bag to avoid just that. Though nowadays I only use one bare leather strop to finish off with given that my Worksharp covers 99.9% of all my sharpening needs. I also think that Mother's Mag polish would cover the entire 3-0.25 micron spectrum by itself, but perhaps it's just might be because I never learned to strop properly. That stuff is pretty weird, it'll mirror polish an edge that's kind of foggy(around 3-6 microns), but the final edge finish can pop hairs off your arm, so I figure the stuff covers a range of grits rather than being any specific finish size.
 
I'm having some troubles, the knife is getting really sharp, but for some reason, I can't get the tip to sharpen and the two bevels are uneven, any tips?
 
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