Asymmetrical stropping

I'm hoping other experienced sharpness will chime in. I like to keep my knives immaculately sharpened. I have a decent sized collection, but being a home cook, they don't get enough used enough to warrant frequent sharpenings. Sad I know. But to keep them in tip top shape, I'll usually just strop them after use.

I use a 6-8K dry Takenono (arashiyama) stone from Dave M. With blade trailing strokes, I'd strop the same number of times on each side of the blade. Then I started thinking about microbevels. Remember Jon saying that it helped thin knives if applied on one side only. I thought, hum, maybe I could put a micro-micro bevel on with a dry strop.

Method: On a dry high grit stone, using the weight of the blade and trailing edge strokes, do three strokes on the right side and one on the left side. I was really shocked at how much it woke up the blade. Then I applied that technique to my other knives, Haburn, DT, Kono, Kramer, Carter even my Chris Reeve Sebenza and it improved all of them, regardless of steel. Gave a noticeable sticky-scary sharpness to all of them. Paper test confirm, all knives grabbed earlier and sounded a lot quieter moving through it.

Do you think this method has any drawbacks? Do you think that over time, I'll move the edge to the left? I know it works, just not sure if its a good idea. Appreciate the FB.

TKS

MB

I'm wondering what the edge of the knife looks like if you're stropping on something abrasive (like a dry stone). Thinking about the thinning that would occur i'm not sure how durable the edge would be. I'm thinking that it would do the same thing that stropping a straight razor would do (something I'm far more familiar with) and it brings me back to a specific article about pasted stropping and the formation of foil/burrs.

I'll quote a some opinions from a great article:

"The primary goal of stropping is to reduce the edge width by increasing the bevel angle near the apex (micro-convexity)"

"Abrasive stropping differs from conventional edge-leading honing in two ways; the trailing edge direction and the compressible nature of the substrate. Sharpening on a hard hone or stone in the edge-trailing direction provides the simplest case of pasted stropping; where compressibility does not play a role."

"In summary, edge-trailing strokes can produce a keener edge than edge-leading; however, they generally result in the formation of an undesirable burr or foil.|


And based on the findings I can only figure that you're creating

I think, if you're interested in stropping, something 'compressible', like a leather bench strop or nano cloth etc would be a better option for stropping your blades between uses.

Brook, Indeed, but I have those too and I find that for my knives (mostly stainless), the takenono wakes up a blade like no other strop.

Have:
11" Martel hard felt strop loaded with 1u diamond spray
11" horse butt unloaded dry strop
8" bovine leather loaded with 1U diamond
8" balsa loaded with 1u Chromium oxide

I just find that some strops can polish the teeth on the edge too much. I haven't used anything better for my stainless knives than a dry Takenono. Seems to both refine and add micro teeth to the edge.

Curious why you don't just do a few regular passes?

Perhaps the limited number of passes you are doing in a stropping fashion arent enough to cause a foil?

After stropping like you mentioned, how long does your edge last? Would be curious to see if it holds up as long as a properly sharpened edge with no abrasive stropping.

Mucho, isn't this a hone?

I use a cordovan strop, but just to refine the edge and remove any remnant wire edge. I can do this a few times in use and then I will have to return to the stone. Not something I do on regular kitchen knives, just something I need really sharp.

That is how I maintain my edges, a few strokes on the dominant side, then one to pull the tiny burr off on the other on a soaked 6k that I keep at work.

After three or four the micro bevel gets large enough that I have to sharpen from the top of the primary down to thin the micro bevel out and reapply. This is why I switched to all wide beveled knives, there is a lot less sandpaper in my life.

I find that using this method keeps my knives very sharp, with less time invested, and nary a microchip even with pretty aggressive primary angles.

Dardeau said:

That is how I maintain my edges, a few strokes on the dominant side, then one to pull the tiny burr off on the other on a soaked 6k that I keep at work.

After three or four the micro bevel gets large enough that I have to sharpen from the top of the primary down to thin the micro bevel out and reapply. This is why I switched to all wide beveled knives, there is a lot less sandpaper in my life.

I find that using this method keeps my knives very sharp, with less time invested, and nary a microchip even with pretty aggressive primary angles.

Click to expand...

Thanks Dardeau, that's reassuring FB coming from you.

I don't know about that, I screw things up all the time! Thank you though

Mucho, I do the same thing... And I have a funny feeling Jon told me that he tends to only use stones and strops on a 6k or higher stone. Or at least my memory from when I did a lesson with him was that he recommended that if I didn't want to get into the whole felt/leather strop scene. And it works wonders on my edges, typically is all I need to get them back to sharp. ANd then I tend to resharpen all of my knives every 6 months or so.