Guidance on stropping

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maximus83

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Some folks here have been giving tips to improve my freehand sharpening. Also working on stropping. I've been getting ok results not great. A few times it seems after stropping my edges get WORSE than during sharpening.

What is the best SIMPLE, MINIMALIST guide to stropping? Is my current setup ok?

Setup:
  • 2-sided leather paddle, smooth and suede.
  • Tomek PA70 honing paste (6K-8K grit) on the suede side
 
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Best minimalist in my opinion is a sheet of paper wrapped around a coarse benchstone similar to video. Smear with oil/stone dust residue from a silicon carbide stone or use compound with firm binder. If you need a softer touch, use two sheets of paper. This method is more forgiving of too much pressure and also allows better indexing of the edge due to better feedback.

 
Good video, thx. Cool idea to wrap a paper around your coarse stone and use the swarf as the honing compound.
 
I only strop a sharp deburred blade. Its my last step to get the edge super clean sharp. The first question that came to my mind was is the knife sharpened enough on your stones to where its ready to be stropped? My next question is how are you holding the blade, what angle and how much pressure? I put my paste on the smooth side of my strop. I do a few passes on the rough side then switch to the smooth pasted side.
 
I ended up getting best results with 1micron cbn on a piece of cherry (Have lots of scraps) I have the tomek paste too, but the above is my go to with LIGHT pressure to touch up an edge.
 
The thing I see that keeps coming up in this thread, and my other one about freehand sharpening technique, is too much pressure. I think I am applying too much both during sharpening and stropping. I also think I'm making the mistakes jc57 mentioned, wrong angle. I had learned somewhere earlier I should strop at a slightly steeper angle than whatever my edge is (if edge is around 20-22, go a little higher at say 25). But the few times I did this, it just made the edge worse.
 
maximus83 said:
The thing I see that keeps coming up in this thread, and my other one about freehand sharpening technique, is too much pressure. I think I am applying too much both during sharpening and stropping. I also think I'm making the mistakes jc57 mentioned, wrong angle. I had learned somewhere earlier I should strop at a slightly steeper angle than whatever my edge is (if edge is around 20-22, go a little higher at say 25). But the few times I did this, it just made the edge worse.
Click to expand...

Strop at a lower angle.

One beauty of stropping on paper is you can use the Sharpie trick and not color up your strop.
 
Should I strop at approx the same angle that I used for my edge? Or do you mean strop at a LOWER angle than what I sharpened it at?
 
I don't know how you sharpen but your issue may not be stropping it may be the stones/sharpening system that you are using. If for example you are free hand sharpening on a India stone that is 150/400 then stropping that is not enough. You need to gradually move up in grits then strop if you want that mirror polished razor edge. If you do need to put a whole new edge on a knife what i would recommend is using an India stone go 150 then 400, then move up to a higher grit water stone or better yet (imo) a soft Arkansas stone, then move up to a even higher grit Hard black surgical or Hard translucent Arkansas stone, and then strop it. If you don't care for a mirror edge than you can substitute the Hard Arkansas with ceramic then strop (it worked for me in the past). Hope this helps.
 
Im using green compound on hard wood at same or little bit higher angle than sharpening angle just to clean the apex (not to polish) I believe hard wood allow me keep the same angle without round the shouder or roll the apex.
I also believe that the key if using leather strop is light stroke pressure and more passes instead hard pressure and less passes.
 
"Stropping" should only require 10-15 passes or less.
If you are doing more, you are using the strop as a 'sharpening' device rather than as a stropping device. "Stropping" is 'finishing' the edge, not creating it.


Stitchawl
 
Ok I forgot to measure it. When I said less passes I was meaning 2~4 passes each side and that is what I do with wood. More passes for me is like stitchawl wrote above.

Thanks stitch. :thumbsup:
 
A knife should be very sharp and ready to use coming off of the stones. Test the knife after using the stones. If it is not sharp enough, go back to the stones. Then once you have a sharp edge, go to the strop. But it is critical to use very very light pressure..VERY LIGHT. Like less than the weight of the blade. The strop should only really be used to refine an edge. One should have almost no burr before going to the strop. I usually do about 3 passes but not more than 10 on each side of a strop loaded in green compound. I only use the strop to get rid of the last semblance of a burr that is hard to even detect. If you push to hard on the strop or have a strop with a leather that is too soft, you will round the edge very quickly.
 
Old-ish thread I should've locked or updated. I moved a couple months ago to stropping on hardwood + cbn compound. My issue of taking sharpness off my edges was removed by switching to a better stropping setup plus stropping at sharpening angle. Problem solved.

Locking thread since this one is resolved.
 
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