Recommendation? What Strop for S110V? Soft vs. Hard?

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DruBokkens

Joined
Jul 17, 2016
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Having been advised to grind S110V on diamond to 600-800 and move to some diamond paste for light-to-medium stropping, I lack the clarity and information on that step of the process. I read around the forum that stropping high vanadium steels can work better on hard surface, but I'd like to clarify some information. Should I bother with the soft (suede) strops + diamond paste, or is it only going to work on hard strops? If so, could someone recommend a decent leather strop for steels like S110V?

Any info will be appreciated.
 
Looks like everybody but you and I is down at the pub.

Here's a >>>>>link.

I hate stropping so I "strop" on my DMT 8,000 grit Aligner stone. If I am doing a full sharpening then I put it in my Edge Pro Apex and if I am doing a touch up to take the edge from near shave sharp to hair whittling then I just hold it one of two ways shown. I wear a fairly high magnification jeweler's visor and watch for the very, very slightest bur and then take the bur off with the same stone.
I go like one slow careful stroke per side then go to the other side.
Very light . . . hardly anything. Maybe six strokes per side total alternating. Mostly all edge trailing.
Beats the HELL out of all those 30 to 50 strokes per side stuff on leather etc.
IMO
PS: oh . . . and I move the stone and hold the blade stationary.
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I like a hard surface to strop on. Even if it's leather, leather that is thin or doesn't compress will work. Wood works. Even news paper over glass works well. The theory is you don't want to round your edge off.

You'll have to experiment with spray vs paste on the media you choose. Spay will be my next thing to try out. Paste works fine for the most part but I'm nearly out.
 
Thank you both for your replies. I have an 8000 DMT sharpener, will try your method. I definitely plan on using a diamond paste, the problem I have is whether to use a soft or hard leather strop. As far as basswood or balsa for stropping, the main thing I'm trying to figure out is effect on bevel convex. Since I free-hand, I like to put a nice convex on my bevel, and I understand that softer stropping surface works well with those, while very hard surfaces tend to work better for V-edges and microbevels. At the same time, high-vanadium steels from what I found require hard stropping surface, so my main question is: can I strop a hard steel like S110V on the soft-side strop to promote the bevel convex, or do I have to use either hard strop/wood?
 
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DruBokkens said:
Thank you both for your replies. I have an 8000 DMT sharpener, will try your method. I definitely plan on using a diamond paste, the problem I have is whether to use a soft or hard leather strop. As far as basswood or balsa for stropping, the main thing I'm trying to figure out is effect on bevel convex. Since I free-hand, I like to put a nice convex on my bevel, and I understand that softer stropping surface works well with those, while very hard surfaces tend to work better for V-edges and microbevels. At the same time, high-vanadium steels from what I found require hard stropping surface, so my main question is: can I strop a hard steel like S110V on the soft-side strop to promote the bevel convex, or do I have to use either hard strop/wood?
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You'll be better off using a moderately firm wood for that anyway. If you're already putting some deliberate convex on your bevels in sharpening them, even easier still. Something like balsa or basswood works well for that. Use a piece that's long enough to enable long, sweeping passes, which really eases the whole process. A stropping surface length of 12" - 18" works very well for that. The wood will still be 'soft' enough as compared to the steel itself, to produce some convex in the bevels while leaving a much, much crisper apex, than if trying the same with any leather strop. The wood will also provide a firmer bedding for the compound, which makes it work much more efficiently (aggressively) for polishing and quicker refinement on high-wear steels, without as much risk for edge-rounding, as can happen on leather with the same compound.
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
You'll be better off using a moderately firm wood for that anyway. If you're already putting some deliberate convex on your bevels in sharpening them, even easier still. Something like balsa or basswood works well for that. Use a piece that's long enough to enable long, sweeping passes, which really eases the whole process. A stropping surface length of 12" - 18" works very well for that. The wood will still be 'soft' enough as compared to the steel itself, to produce some convex in the bevels while leaving a much, much crisper apex, than if trying the same with any leather strop. The wood will also provide a firmer bedding for the compound, which makes it work much more efficiently (aggressively) for polishing and quicker refinement on high-wear steels, without as much risk for edge-rounding, as can happen on leather with the same compound.
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Makes sense, thanks for the valuable info!
 
NORTHWEST_KNIFE_GUY said:
Been using this combo for years, works great!
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Just curious, is there any specific way I should load the paste onto the wood? And do I need to maintain it any certain way to keep the surface good for stropping over longer periods of time?
 
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DruBokkens said:
Just curious, is there any specific way I should load the paste onto the wood? And do I need to maintain it any certain way to keep the surface good for stropping over longer periods of time?
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I normally just put a few small dabs on (IMO less is more), and rub it in gently with my finger. Normally after I'm done I'll take a paper towel with a little rubbing alcohol and gently wipe with the grain to remove paste / debris and then after it dries I'll put it in a plastic storage bag. My basswood strops normally last quite a long time. Balsa on the other hand wears out much quicker as least for me.
 
NORTHWEST_KNIFE_GUY said:
I normally just put a few small dabs on (IMO less is more), and rub it in gently with my finger. Normally after I'm done I'll take a paper towel with a little rubbing alcohol and gently wipe with the grain to remove paste / debris and then after it dries I'll put it in a plastic storage bag. My basswood strops normally last quite a long time. Balsa on the other hand wears out much quicker as least for me.
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Balsa will always wear out much quicker, it has far lower specific gravity and average dried weight (both translate to density), crushing strength, and Janka hardness. What I'll experiment with is getting a couple basswood pieces for stropping high-wear carbide steels on 1-micron paste, and a piece of balsa for stropping softer non-carbide steels on a 0.5- to 0.25-micron paste, see what happens.

In either case, I truly appreciate that you guys took the time to explain this process to me and suggested the appropriate wood types for the job, since I have no experience with stropping on wood.
 
DruBokkens said:
Balsa will always wear out much quicker, it has far lower specific gravity and average dried weight (both translate to density), crushing strength, and Janka hardness. What I'll experiment with is getting a couple basswood pieces for stropping high-wear carbide steels on 1-micron paste, and a piece of balsa for stropping softer non-carbide steels on a 0.5- to 0.25-micron paste, see what happens.

In either case, I truly appreciate that you guys took the time to explain this process to me and suggested the appropriate wood types for the job, since I have no experience with stropping on wood.
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Sure you bet, and you might find this interesting

 
Dangerously said:
When you flatten the wood, what grit of sandpaper do you use? I don’t have a planer so I’m left with sandpaper on glass.
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I'd avoid sand paper. You don't want the grit to be embedded into your strop making stray scratches.
 
Mo2 said:
I'd avoid sand paper. You don't want the grit to be embedded into your strop making stray scratches.
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No sandpaper! And I don’t have a planer. I guess I’ll just have to ask it nicely to be flatter. :)
 
Re: sanding balsa...

It's easy and not such a big deal. Use a relatively coarse grit for wood, like ~ 100 - 150 garnet or aluminum oxide. On wood, that'll still leave a pretty fine & smooth finish. There's essentially no risk in embedding the sandpaper's grit in the wood, because sanding is done at a light touch (balsa will shred underneath it, easily), and the individual grains of grit are coarse enough that, IF they come off the paper, they're easy to detect by feel or by sight. No worries. The same applies if a somewhat finer grit is used; just keep the touch light, and it won't embed.

There's an additional, minor benefit to using something like garnet sandpaper, instead of alumox or SiC. The garnet abrasive isn't nearly as hard, and therefore won't do as much scratch-damage on your bevels if you do catch a stray bit of it. But again, if done as above, there's very little risk of that anyway.

I've also used a metal paint scraper with a big burr filed onto the edge, to scrape the surface of balsa & basswood I've used for strops. Works in a similar fashion to a woodworker's card scraper, and will smooth these particular woods pretty easily.
 
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I'm not convinced stropping accomplishes much on powder steels (S30V, S110, etc.) with large volumes of very hard carbides; like Wowbagger, I finish with a few very light strokes on an ultrafine DMT. A few light licks on a smooth steel (RC 64) helps to get that hair-whittling edge.
 
I have found a lot depends on the quality of the emulsion or Diamond paste you are using,if you look on ebay for Diamond paste from the Ukraine it's good stuff even if it is 4 Karat stuff and how you can tell by the label is the Karat content for 4 Karat will be shown as 40.00,I also ordered some 10 Karat stuff to try as well to see how it works out and I'm liking the 4 Karat stuff better then Ken Schwartz's emulsion's and it's dirt cheap to.

I'm still waiting on the 10 Karat stuff to arrive I ordered some but it showed up and I had o re-order from another vendor you can also get 12 16 and 20 Karat diamond paste's as well if you know the right seller but you can also go to high of concentration as well and what can happen is the diamonds start to clump together when sharpening and cause big scratch's as if they were one big diamond doing the work I was told this buy a guy who I know that sharpen's straight razors and had result's that were not very good for sharpening straight razor's but for a knife where a toothy edge is wanted the 20 Karat stuff made offer an advantage.

Alberta Ed said:
I'm not convinced stropping accomplishes much on powder steels (S30V, S110, etc.) with large volumes of very hard carbides; like Wowbagger, I finish with a few very light strokes on an ultrafine DMT. A few light licks on a smooth steel (RC 64) helps to get that hair-whittling edge.
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Try using a peace of MDF it's dirt cheap and works great just ask Beansandcarrots he posted a thread but it got deleted because he posted to amazon and the product he used,he likes it because you can use more pressure to strop if you want to and you can also push pull and you won't hurt the MDF at all,I use a Tsprof K02 Guided system with Ash and MDF strop's and I can push pull with both of those strop's and get really fast result's.Beansandcarrots was able to get hir whittling result's with just cheapo Badak diamond paste.

If you have not tried Kangaroo leather try that for a strop you can get it off ebay and don't get the tail leather it's bumpy,it's a good durable leather and it's fairly thin and does not compress much either.

DruBokkens said:
Balsa will always wear out much quicker, it has far lower specific gravity and average dried weight (both translate to density), crushing strength, and Janka hardness. What I'll experiment with is getting a couple basswood pieces for stropping high-wear carbide steels on 1-micron paste, and a piece of balsa for stropping softer non-carbide steels on a 0.5- to 0.25-micron paste, see what happens.

In either case, I truly appreciate that you guys took the time to explain this process to me and suggested the appropriate wood types for the job, since I have no experience with stropping on wood.
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