Thought I’d add this to this thread, since I pulled some pictures from it.
On edges I finish with a leather strop, I’ve been finishing them by stropping 1 deg. higher. For reasons that seem to defy what “should” happen, this leaves me with an edge much sharper, yet without the loss of “bite” that many try to avoid when using leather.
On my last visit to WE, I took a blade that I had stropped after the 1K diamond stone, for Clay to put under the ‘scope.. I compared it to a couple of photos in this thread…
Here 1 deg. higher (bottom) compared to an edge stropped 4 deg. higher (top)
Here 1 deg. higher (middle) between an edge stropped 2 deg. lower (left), and the 4 deg. higher again (right)
While just one blade, It does seem to show that the edge gets cleaned up without significant rounding. I’m using very light pressure, and the increased angle seems to facilitate this. Pressure probably plays a role, as indicated where Clay was able to take the 2 deg. lower edge (top) and round it by increasing the pressure (bottom) (shown earlier in this thread) …
So, just thought I’d share, since it’s working well for me, this might give at least one clue why, and see if others want to try it and post their results.
