It's not you, it's me….
- This topic has 13 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 09/13/2019 at 3:34 am by
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Michael, I don’t think it takes a lot of stropping compound to be effective. There are YouTube videos and videos in the W.E. Knowledge Base you can view. The strops will improve as the compound rubs in and spreads across the surface. That being said, I don’t think you can really use too much compound either. If you apply an abundance of compound it will be messier and the excess compound may slough off on your sharpener vise , base and the knife sides.
Your progression, IMO, is a good one. Yes you can add the new finer Diamond stone grits, the 2200 and 3000 grit. They will yield a finer scratch pattern and a very fine sharp edge. But, In my experience using these very fine diamond grits, I did not end up with a polished mirror bevel that would allow me to skip further polishing steps in my progression.
In your stropping progression the only criticism i’d make is you may want to consider adding additional finer grit strops like 1.0µ and 0.5µ compounds.
I have been using my strops for years. So I have quite a bit of experience using them. I still cut and gouge them from time to time. I use them cut and gouged as long as they aren’t so badly gouged that there is a bad, large lump on the surface from the cut. I too have replaced the leather and it always gets cut again. For me it’s just part of the deal. Employing more vertical, up and off, stropping strokes and stropping smaller sections of the knife’s length then blending the short sections with overlapping strops does help me to avoid cutting the leather. Following along the knife’s length and then off the tip it’s hard for me to avoid getting cuts.
I have achieved beautiful mirror polished finishes with lapping films. I still prefer to finish every progression with the strops as a last step.
Marc
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I too use lapping films to achieve a mirror polish. I’ll also affirm Marc’s statement about the leather strops working fine, even with a few nasty cuts.
As to how much paste? If you can see little gobs of paste left behind on the blade’s edge, that’s probably too much. Of course, when you first load the strops with paste, you’ll get the bits of paste left behind. It’s sort of a “break-in” process. After initially loading the strops with paste, when you get to the point where you’re getting a nice, even scratch patterns (as seen under microscope), you know you’ve got enough paste impregnated into the cow’s skin. Probably won’t need more paste for another 20 – 40 knives. The diamond grit gets embedded in the leather and it stays there for quite a while.
Strops work differently from stones. Rather than scratching the surface they are applied to, they “rub” across it, creating a burnishing effect. If you’ve used a wire brush wheel on metal, you’ve probably have noticed that the surface is not scratched, but “smeared”, giving it a polished effect. Some micro photos we’ve seen here on this forum show how strops can actually smear the surface, pushing some of the metal up to a super-fine razor edge.
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The answer to all the questions is a USB microscope to look at your actual progress of sharpening. This recent post should be of help https://knife.wickededgeusa.com/forums/topic/usb-microscopes-question/
I admit that I tore up my first set of strops until I developed a technique using a trailing edge method. It works great on folders and small knives where I can push up and away the entire length of the blade. Now for chef’s knives, I might have to divide the knife up into sections and concentrate on one at a time. Here’s a great video on how much paste to use and how to work it into the leather.
Airscapes is correct; You need to look at the bevels under magnification if you want to know how many strokes with a set of stones are enough. With some of the coarser stones you can get a pretty good idea by listening to the sound that is produced while sharpening and paying attention to how each stroke feels, but there’s no method quite as reliable as looking at the edge under magnification.
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I prefer to use high power while I view the bevel from the side. Other Forum members prefer to look down from the top at the apex of the edge. Try different methods and the different scope powers to see what you prefer to work with. Be aware on most of these USB microscopes the low power which is always a wider view is when the focusing ring is all the way to one direction. The high power or tight in view is almost all the way to the other direction with the focusing ring.
With the microscope you can actually see your scratch pattern as it travels across the bevel and up and off the knife edge if the scratch pattern is applied correctly. That is what I’m inspecting to see. That is the scratch pattern is clean, uniform, parallel and complete from the lower part of the bevel, the shoulder, and up off the knife edge at the apex.
As you follow your sharpening and polishing progressions, you will see how the scratch appearances change in correspondence with the medium you are working with. No matter which medium it is, I still want to see my scratches complete and uniform from shoulder to apex.
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)I like to spritz some acetone on my impregnated leather just to get some “sort of slurry” going. I also do NOT back off the 1-2 deg which I have seen herein. Leather is a touch thing which is similar to the lightest, but firmest, feel thing you can imagine. You are actually abrading ie. forcing the metal to flow vs. abrasion with the diamonds where you are scraping metal off the blade. It’s similar to making love, takes practice LOL. Look at the abrading under a USB scope and you will be amazed what leather will do.
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I like to spritz some acetone on my impregnated leather just to get some “sort of slurry” going.
If you are using any of my 3d printed accessories, watch the acetone, all of the hard parts are made of ABS, which Acetone will melt on contact. Alcohol is fine but not Acetone.
I meant 40 % alcohol, or a good double IPA will also work.
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I’ve been drinking the light brandy, which is only 30% alcohol, so I hope that’s OK. Beer makes me bloat. I will have to ‘fess up that every time I’ve cut myself good, there’s been alcohol involved. Even with my recent disagreement with a cook’s mandolin.
Learn from other peoples’ mistakes, whenever you can. Words of wisdom from a geezer.
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