Stropping, Angles and Dumb Luck

I believe that if the leather is touching the apex while stropping.

The leather will have an “affect” on the edge.

The sideways “pressure” of leather can damage the edge.

I do not have good control of my hand pressure so I back off the angle, which will take longer to have the same sharpening affect.

Modernflame wrote:

My strategy with recent knives is to run diamond stones up to 3000, then micro ceramics, balsa wood strops, 3 micron lapping films, then leather strops at 14, 10, 4, 2, 1, and 0.5 micron. When I move to leather, I back off the sharpening angle by 2 degrees. The result is a very shiny edge. However, the edge is not as sharp as I would like. Once I remove the knife from the clamp and free hand strop on 0.5 and 0.1 micron strops, the sharpness improves massively. I am not bragging. Actually, I have no idea what’s happening. How can it be that a YouTube watching asshat like me gets better results freehand stropping than in the jig? Is 2 degrees too far? Should I only back off 1 degree? 0.5? Grateful for the input.

Modernflame, you’re still relatively new in your W.E. sharpening user experience.   To you I say K.I.S.

You are attempting to employ a lot of different mediums in an order of use that seems logical to you.  Possibly you are following someone else’s suggestion or guidance.

The issue I want of suggest is that each different medium you choose to use requires it’s own learned user experiences and nuisances.  This takes time and practice you are first gaining.   Each medium contributes something different to the bevel and your apex.  It takes some amount of learned experience to know when you’ve achieved the best benefits of each and every different grit and medium.  When you need to still do more, or when you’re ready to quit  and move on.  It may be not enough effort yet or it’s being overdone.   This is where user experience plays a role.

To guess in your long intertwined progression where the results your unhappy with came from can be difficult with all those different mediums.  To assume it’s the results of the last step may not necessarily be the case.

I summit to you, you are sharpening and polishing a knife.  Just like making a mole sauce or a curry, there are a lot of steps and ingredients.   Everything done in the right order, the right way for the right amount of time contributes to the final outcome.

It may be better right now to keep it simpler.  Maybe look to fewer ingredients, fewer mediums in your progression for the final taste, the final sharpness and polish, you’ll be happy with.  Do it this way with good consistent results, for now.  Later you can add to and build on your progressions.  Master less before you look to use more.

This will allow you to discern where it doesn’t work, for you, and what’s contributing to the breakdown in your results.  Time and experience will allow you to know when you need more and when enough is enough.

Stropping is a whole separate set of skills all unto itself.  It requires a balance of stroke direction and pressure.  It can add alot to the results or totally ruin them too.  Check this out:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJJ-2pFpDqk&t=7s

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Dwight Glass, Brewbear

For me, stropping helps my sharpened knife edges simply slide more easily through the substrate I’m cutting or slicing by finely polishing the apex and the bevels.  My knife edge is very strong and sharp to start.  Stropping enhances the bevel’s edges lessening the friction as the very fine remnant scratches are filled and smoothed over by the burnishing effect seen with stropping.  Stropping also smooths the shoulder where the sharpened bevels interface with the knives primary grinds.

If your apex is so floppy and friable that stropping can “make it, or ruin it”.  I suggest you look at the underlying support.  Long, multi-step progressions, in particular those employing edge trailing stroke mediums, can lead to a thinned and elongated knife edge.  Making what’s called a wired edge.  It can be incredibly sharp.  It just doesn’t stand up to use.

Before I ever strop, all remnants of a burr have been removed in previous steps in my progression.

Here are photos to show the burnishing or smoothing over effect seen with stropping:

The key is to learn the balance between, stropping angle and applied pressure.  This is an individualized process; a trial and error procedure.  It’s often recommended to start at a 2º more acute angle then go from there.

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Mike, Brewbear

Modernflame wrote:

The point of this thread was that my stropping technique on the WE did not completely remove the root of the burr, but my freehand technique did. I’d like to improve my WE stropping technique and would welcome advice on this topic.

Root of the Burr?? What does that mean, there should be NO burr or hint of burr when you get to stropping.. Please define your use of the word Burr in this context.

I am a proponent of not backing off the angle at all when I strop. My goal is to strop the whole bevel shoulder to apex and if I back off then I am relying on the correct pressure to fully engage the bevel and to me that’s nearly impossible. So I use the same angles and concentrate on the gentlest pressure needed to fully engage the bevel. I spritz the strop with iso propyl to get a very slight slurry going and then think about caressing while doing 5 alternate strokes per side. Sometime soon I will repeat this and take some 200x pics to see if I get the same amount of burnishing as the photos in this post show.

What I am actually more interested in is addressing the shoulder by backing off maybe 5+ deg and then go thru some quick progressions with some maybe heavier stropping to sort of force a simple convex-like shoulder.

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wickededge

I have a Jet double-ended buffer and I’ve learned that if I want to step up my routine sharpening, I’ll stone to 2200 or 3000, then hit the buffer with a 10″ cotton wheel and white polishing compound.  Pink scratchless compound also works great.  One or two passes is all it takes.  Maybe 5 seconds per side.

For the last 6 – 12 months, I’ve only used my DLF or strops on my woodworking chisels and plane irons.