If lapping film doesn’t have the danger of rounding the edge and is available down to 0.10 micron, why use strops? I assume one could bet to a razor sharp, mirror polish edge with one or the other alone, so why both? Is it steel type? Is it personal preference? Is there a rhyme and reason for one vs. the other?
I am truly curious and trying to learn. Thanks to all for your input.
Also, what is the difference between the HHT-1/2/3/4/etc. tests?
Sometimes you need to reduce the the edge width, or remove a micro foil, or even think of it like creating a double bevel although convex. You can even stop at a coarser grit like 1000 maybe, strop it and have a polished toothy edge. I am new to the wicked edge and just learning myself. I read everything I could and settled on the wicked edge for guided sharpening. Below is an excellent blog with pictures of razor blade edges from an electron microscope. Excellent write ups too on different stropping material and how they work or don’t work. Leather Strops/Diamond Films/Shapton glass/Chosera/ Balsa /Roo/Nanocloth/Cereal box, these are all instruments and you get to be the artist, there are so many different edges you can produce with these tools, that is the fun for me. You can make this system as complicated or as simple as you want. It has become my hobby, so I am going the complicated route, great fun! Enjoy the journey.
https://scienceofsharp.wordpress.com/2015/02/09/the-pasted-strop-part-1/
Sorry I missed the question about HHT. This is a copy and paste of the best answer I found when I was looking too, not that long ago.
HHT stands for Hanging Hair Test, its pretty controversial but here is the gist of it.
<h2>Standardization of the test</h2>
Thank you. I, like you, enjoy this hobby for its artistic nature and the available options to achieve different results. Both articles are very informative and the HHT explanations is easily understood.
I would love to see a presentation about different stropping media compared at the same micron levels to compare results under magnification. If anyone has the tools and time to accomplish this, it would be very informative and helpful.
Stones are more effective then strops: they don’t wear (at least no that that don’x exposive abrasive material anamore), so you need much more of them for the same effect.
The main question here is strop vs lapping film… When to choose one or the other.
Good question. I usually use stropping films all the way and only one strop (very fine) at the end.
Since the release of the WE Lapping Films, I only use the strops for “convexing” edges or making a “convexed bevel”. Basically, I place multiple facets on the blade and then blend them together to form a near perfect convex with a strop and diamond paste. This is a very effective technique and you can see Clay performing it on a Chris Reeve- Sabenza (Click here for link). The flexibility of the strop leather is what allows this to work so well. Give it a try! I think you will love the result.
Yeah, I forgot that. I use a strop for that purpose, too: https://moleculepolishing.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/creating-a-convex-edge-using-the-wicked-edge-conclusions/
Lapping films are generally going to be more aggressive than strops. Their thinness gives them less compression and more perfection, and the diamond films will cut through all materials. Strops give more, and lend themselves to finishing or tweaking more than films, IMO. With the precision of the WEPS, you get a more perfect triangle tip, which is thinner as the edge approaches that zero width. By finishing with a strop, you can slightly convex that edge of the edge to give back some thickness and rigidity. You can also use the strops for maintenance to continually touch up the edge of the edge (through convexing) without actually reestablishing the bevels fully. But in the end, it’s as Molon stated, that the beauty is in the choices available. As you get more time in on your WEPS, you will hopefully start diving down the rabbit hole head first into all the accessories so that you can challenge yourself and see what the different options yield. The combinations are endless!
Jende Industries, thank you for your insight! It was very helpful. I finally received my strops, cow leather to start, and am anxious to try them out. I have been a bit hesitant given the commentary on dulling the edge due to rounding it off. As I think about it, if you are doing both sides at a 1 to 1 pace, the rounding should be a non issue, correct? That be the case, is it necessary to back off 1 - 2 degrees? It seems that the change in angle would impact the shape of the edge bevel the most. Again, trial and error is the fun!
Oh, and regarding the rabbit hole you referred to, I’m already deep!!
The trick to leather -and all finish stropping- is a super light touch. You’d be surprised how easy it is to manipulate the edge of the edge. There is an overall consensus on backing of 1-2 degrees when switching over to stropping yields better results than keeping the same angle as the stones. At the finishing stages, you’ll only need 2-5 strokes on clean strops to align the edge. if you are going with loaded strops, then you will need to experiment to see which works best for the way you manipulate the paddles, with pressure being the biggest influence on compression and rounding of the edge.
From my experience I think the diamond films would be a great tool for mirror polishing the bevel. If “perfect” mirror isn’t the main focus, then a few light strokes with the strop will make the edge a little sharper than just stones alone. For knives without mirror polishes, simply going through the stones and leather strops give me really sharp results.
My troubles with leather strops have mostly been its usage in the chase for scratchless mirror while keeping a single flat facet on the bevel. Polishing with leather tends to turn the edge into a convex one (ever so slightly). It’s really a struggle to polish without using much pressure.
So I think the application and end results determine which tool is your best option. For me I have not invested into the diamond films. My mirror polishing is mostly done with diamond paste on cardboard from a cereal box.
I am guessing that the diamond films will replace my cereal box strop in due time.
I can’t really answer the question of films vs. strops (‘cause I don’t have any films)… but I wanted to comment a bit about stropping with leather.
First… don’t be afraid of pressure. When I first started sharpening (this part was pre-W.E.)… I would take what I thought was a sharp edge, and strop it. I would find, as many do, that the strop seemed to “kill” the edge… often described as “rounding”, no longer has bite, etc. And the solution given… use as little pressure as possible. For me, doing this seemed to either still “kill” the edge, or result in no improvement… to the point where I didn’t bother.
But after watching numerous videos of people stropping, often with significant pressure and getting good results (Clay for example, use to report stropping with enough pressure he would start to lift the base)… I knew I was missing something. So, occasionally I would revisit it.
Over time, I found that stropping would improve my edge… and I didn’t have to use “light pressure” to get good results. I can now strop with pressure, make the occasional “greater angle” stroke, etc. and find that it usually only improves the edge. Why? Can’t say definitively, but my best guess is… it’s because I learned to create a proper edge prior to stropping (sharp and burr free). A proper edge will benefit from stropping, an improper one will often die. (I think another part is the right compound… “green compound”, for example, is no good for a sharp edge IMO).
The other thing is the convex part… (this is on the W.E.) So little convex is created… it essentially doesn’t matter. As a test this a.m. (just to make sure nothing cropped up)…. I created a flat bevel, then stropped the crapola out of it with the 10m/5m “regular leather” strops… with some pretty significant pressure (I have a panavise attached to a granite base, and was rocking the whole thing back and forth… so… pretty significant), and at the same angle. Then I remarked the blade with the Sharpie, and checked the edge with a stone… and the marker was removed along the entire bevel width in one stroke… and no convex detected under my handheld scope. Now, my strops are pretty old, and somewhat stiff (like my joints), so that plays into it I’m sure (I’ll spritz them with alcohol which over time also stiffens them up)… but like I said, I was stropping pretty hard, and detected no convex… none that I could tell anyway. (And I got a very sharp knife).
I do think you can create a ‘faux’ convex as stated above (multi bevels, then blend it with leather), but the stones do most of the work. Also, nothing wrong with using alternative media, as some have written…. for example, my freehand stropping is now often done on paper.
Anyway… my .02. Don’t take my word for it… take a beater knife and a Sharpie… and test some of it out. (Mark the blade between stones and strops, so you can see what’s going on). Maybe new leather will require a 1 deg. decrease in angle… but strops I’ve found are more forgiving than most assume… especially given the proper edge and compound to begin with.
When the topic goes to stropping and angles I always remember back when I was a kid and the barber would strop his straight razor on a tightly horizontally held leather belt strop, slapping it down then pulling it across, turning the straight razor over, slapping it back down and dragging it back the other way as the belt deflected and wrapped up around the razor. The barber seemed to apply a lot of pressure and certainly there was no attention placed on to the angle the razor made with the belt. So I definitely think pressure helps and I haven’t yet made my decision on what angle it’s best to strop at relative the bevel angle.
Thanks everyone for your input. I will begin to experiment with the strops. I did receive the lapping films and have been playing with them. I am finding that once you go from the diamond stones to ceramics or glass platens, the thickness changes slightly throwing off the sharpening angle. Has anyone else experienced this?
How about experience with the thickness compensation plate accessory? It becomes very time consuming to put on the angle cube, ensure its plumb with a framing square, and make necessary adjustments. I am finding this repeated process is throwing off my sharpening angle and my results are showing it. Advice and shared experiences appreciated.
I modified my stones a long time ago to tighten the slop between the rods and the handles. Unfortunately, I didn’t hit the distances between the stone faces and the bores consistently, so I’ve been using the Variable Stone Thickness Adapters for several years (and with great success.) It only takes a few seconds to set the micro-adjusts to compensate for any errors, however, I have found that I’ve occasionally missed the angle by something around 0.1 degrees, especially at the higher grits. The scratches from the previous grit are still visible either at the apex or at the shoulder. About one-third of a turn of the micro-adjust screws makes the necessary correction. The key is to get the VSTA to tighten onto the degree bar without skewing too much and to always be consistent in the technique.
Lately, I’ve been using a Gen 3 Pro, which doesn’t have provisions for variable stone thickness. I still have the problem with my stones though, so I’ve had to resort to my angle-cube. I switched to the DXL-360 a while back and it seems to be faster and more accurate than the Igaging unit I started with. It’s a bit of a pain with non-ferrous platens, but I’m not really annoyed by it. The adjustment knob with the 0.1 rev scaling marks makes it easier to make an adjustment, once you know the error. The photo is for the Gen 2, but I done it the same on my Gen 3 Pro.
Rich which model are you using?
WE120. I have the Pro Pack 2.
I’m not following why you use a framing square. Changing angles is a necessary, unavoidable, part of it. You will get quicker and it will get faster as you do it more. You’ll learn and remember how many holes you need to slide the arms to adjust the angle when switching from diamonds to ceramics or glass. Then next time you just know to move it, in or out, 1 or 2 or 3 holes right away. That change will be predictably the same always when switching to that same stone type. The micro-adjustments are pretty predictable too. I use a Wixey angle every grit change. Even if I just flip the stone around to the other side. (But I use Shapton wetstones often. Wetstones are lapped fairly frequently so they may vary more than diamonds, ceramics or glass, from side to side.) Like TCMeyer, I count the flats on the micro-adjustment hex screws as I twist them in or out to make the fine angle adjustments. I have observed that its about 1 to 1-1/2 flats of the hexagon for every 0.1 degree I need to add or subtract. Depending on the steepness of the sharpening angle that number varies some too. So again, with time, if you can make and remember those observations your adjustments will become quicker and easier. I did upgrade, when I was able, to the Gen 3 clamp on my Gen 2 Pro. That took the lean out when clamping Full Flat Ground (FFG) knives so I could clamp each different knife centered and vertical, quickly and reliably.