New to the forum and need some help.
- This topic has 9 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 10/07/2019 at 2:37 am by
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Kris, first of all welcome to the W.E. Forum.
IMO it is more about your technique. I believe, by trying to follow the length of the knife as it curves down at the tip there is the inadvertent tendency to pull the strop down and onto the knife edge while doing that. To avoid this, break down your stropping strokes into shorter sections of the knife, say 3 or 4 sections and strop each section separately, including the tip section. Paying close attention to maintain an edge trailing, up and off the knife, stroke direction. At the tip if the edge curves down with the tip, be sure to try to cross the knife edge, in an edge trailing, up and off the edge motion, while maintaining a perpendicular stropping stroke to the knife edge. The stroke can still be up and off the edge even though it may be going more in a sideways direction as you follow the curve of the knife tip, crossing it perpendicularly.
It’s very hard to follow the entire knife edge from heel to knife tip in an attempt to do it with a single stropping stroke without turning the strop’s direction into the knife edge. Strop the length in several individual strokes, 3 or 4 or even more, what ever it takes, while overlapping those strokes to give you full complete blended stropping coverage of the entire knife.
Kris, for a 9″ long chef’s knife, depending upon how you’ve clamped it, you may indeed need longer guide rods then the standard included length. But that’s a separate issue from the stropping technique and not the cause of your strop cutting, IMO.
If your able to reach the entire knife and sharpen it while it’s clamped in the standard vise then you don’t need the LAA for that knife. At some point you probably will need to use it. (Usually for narrow height knives that are sharpened at low bevel angles.)
Last remark is you can continue to use a cut strop and it will work just fine.
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)The strops v lapping film question gets posed often. It is a misunderstanding to think that you should choose one or the other. The lapping films are basically single layer thick semi-disposable high grit diamond stones. Use the lapping films if you want a higher degree of edge refinement than you are getting with the stones. The lapping films are also a shortcut to a nearly mirrored polish.
The strops work very differently from the lapping films or the stones. They burnish the steel and smooth out the high points in the grooves that the diamonds dig as they remove steel from the blade. The strops also remove any micro burr that may remain. Strops are the ideal way to finish an edge in my opinion. I suggest using strops to finish all edges both coarse or highly refined.
In summary; don’t choose one or the other, use the strops either with or without the lapping films.
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I definitely suggest longer rods. I purchased some from Oldawan and never regretted it.
I believe they offer 12″ rods here in the WE accessories shop. I just purchased those for my gen 3.
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Kris, to be sure you purchase the correct diameter guide rods to match your particular version WE100, I suggest you stick with W.E. for that particular accessory. You probably should order them via a phone call to be sure you get what you need.
I too have purchased many accessories from Bob at Oldawan with never a single problem. Bob has also produced several very helpful YouTube videos worth viewing, also.
Marc
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The soft more compressible nature of the strops and since the abrasive compound is simply applied to the surfaces and not permanently adhered contributes to the difference in the polishing behavior of strops vs the sharpening behavior of the lapping films. The abrasives can slide and roll across the strop mediums giving them their polishing or burnishing effects.
Yes they are similar in types of abrasive particles and the particle sizes but they behave differently.
Marc
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Here’s an analogy that sort of explains the difference between diamond film and diamond paste on strops. Film on a hard substrate is like the drum sander I use on my pedestal polishing rig. When I press a piece of steel against it, the grit particles rip scratches in the surface of the steel. Strops are like the wire brush wheel I use on the same polisher. When I press a piece of steel against it, the wires flex, resulting in a burnishing effect. The burnishing effect is a form of polishing. Even if the wires were tipped with diamonds, they’d still tend to flex and float across the surface of the steel, rubbing it rather than scratching it.
If you ever held a piece of rusty metal against a powered wire wheel, you’d have seen that the metal takes on a rough but shiny finish. High spots tend to be beaten down and flattened. Strops do the same thing, but in a highly refined way. They can actually move steel and raise a very sharp edge where none had been before.
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