Stropping angle?

[Jacob]

It seems that stripping with the leather strops tends to dull my knives. I progress using the diamond stones up to 1500 grit and then a 6micron lapping film. I’ve tried different techniques on stropping. I used an angle cube and noticed that even when I take the arms in a couple notches it still is close to or even more of an angle that I sharpened at. I get way better results stropping freehand which is kinda frustrating because the WE strops cost me way more!

my question can be summed up like this: If you sharpen at 17 degrees per side, what angle do you strop at?

[airscapes]

Like most things WE  personal preference comes into play.  I have not gotten really good at stopping so tend to not do to much, just enough to round over and polish the area at the bottom of the bevel as I have a similar problem of round the edge.

To answer your question, I if the main bevel is 17 then I strop at 15.5 and try and use light pressure.  By light I mean just a tad more than I might with the lapping film.  I also check the apex with a bright light to make sure there are no shiny spots as I progress.  If so, I stop and drop back to the last stone.  Since I am not doing anything other than kitchen knives, I normally would be done after restoring the edge.  The bottom of the bevel will still be polished from the stropping and I know my edge is now sharp again.  Again personal preference.

2 users thanked author for this post.

wickededge, Organic

[Organic]

I like decreasing the angle by 1.5 degrees when I strop, but the key to good results that I have identified was to use heavy pressure. Light pressure doesn’t seem to do much good for my edges but using firm pressure yields a dramatic improvement in sharpness. I think there is an inverse relationship between angle reduction and pressure in order to get good results. The closer you are to the sharpening angle when stropping the less pressure you need.

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wickededge, Brewbear, NotSharpEnuff, Marc H

[Marc H]

Here’s a YouTube Video by a long time Wicked Edge user. He explains the basics of stropping.  It is not a video specific to the Wicked Edge.  Nonetheless, the video has helpful content and explains the issues we experience, well.

Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)

7 users thanked author for this post.

David, Johnny, Haffner, wickededge, Brewbear, NotSharpEnuff, Organic

[Brewbear]

Thank you Marc for the link, now I just have to try convexing the apex on a knife, just to see how that works. Fortunately, 99 cents store supplied a bushel of knives for me to practice on.

1 user thanked author for this post.

wickededge

[Author]

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