Stropping... Stack of Newspaper Fine? Or should I get Leather?!

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Badgertooth said:
The best strop you can get in my opinion. The heavier and rawer the denim the better the strop it makes as its more taught over your thigh when you bend your leg (you gotta stand like a flamingo in repose to do it). Sanforised Jeans have too much give. Also while you’re wearing in a pair of Raw jeans you’ll have bragging rights of wear-marks from deburring knives in addition the usual whiskers and honeycomb patterns.
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Shigefusa knives, Rolex watches, and raw denim? Where the hell do you people work? Clearly taxes are not high enough.

I have a strange urge to invite you all to a fancy party just so that I can rob you Joker style.

And then burn it all just to send a message. Muahahaha
 
Badgertooth said:
The best strop you can get in my opinion. The heavier and rawer the denim the better the strop it makes as its more taught over your thigh when you bend your leg (you gotta stand like a flamingo in repose to do it). Sanforised Jeans have too much give. Also while you’re wearing in a pair of Raw jeans you’ll have bragging rights of wear-marks from deburring knives in addition the usual whiskers and honeycomb patterns.
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You have to strop a flamingo on your fancy jeans while doing what to your raw thigh?

I think we should just stick with natural stones...
 
Flamingo loaded strops... maybe it's gonna be all the new trend in 2018? Would probably look prettier too than the same old chrome loaded green!
 
Yeah... some other pigments that are found in authentic, high grade artist paints ... are far from anything you want anywhere near food. Chromium might already be something to be careful with - no need to elevate the risk by having cadmium, lead, mercury, cyanide compounds around...
 
I believe you should be able to get decent strop for knives with 40 bucks or so
 
LifeByA1000Cuts said:
Yeah... some other pigments that are found in authentic, high grade artist paints ... are far from anything you want anywhere near food. Chromium might already be something to be careful with - no need to elevate the risk by having cadmium, lead, mercury, cyanide compounds around...
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Green chromium Cr2O3 is inoffensive.
 
you can strop on many things, old jeans, newspaper, phonebook paper, leather , shell cordovan, canvas, balsa. and so on
you can play around with various polishing compounds as well, rouges and buffing compounds and so on.
 
TEWNCfarms said:
Corduroy is my preferred
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I still use my newsprint for touch ups because we have a local free paper and I get it twice a week so it is always on hand. I do like bare felt when sharpening though, to catch and residual burr. I have hear people argue that it does nothing if it is unloaded but it seems to work fine for me and turns grey/black over time so it must be doing something. But nothing, to me, has that feel that the draw of a nice leather offers. :)

I guess I am just a nut with anything sharpening related but you know, I'v not tried corduroy.
 
K813zra said:
...but it seems to work fine for me and turns grey/black over time so it must be doing something. But nothing, to me, has that feel that the draw of a nice leather offers. :)
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I'm with you on this. I have tried and still use a lot of different materials, sometimes just whatever is available, like the edge of a cutting board, but damn, my favorite old belt just can't be beat. Strange piece of leather too. It's a split from an old thick police service belt inside lining. The best I have ever used.
 
JBroida said:
newspaper works great... leather works great too, but leaves a very different feeling edge. If you prefer smoother feeling, leather is your friend. If you like a bit more bite (assuming no compound has been used on either), newspaper tends to do that. If you want to add abrasive pastes/sprays, then leather or similar is the way to go.
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I like more bite, Looks like news paper is my choice.
 
Also with newspaper and a hard backing no worry of rounding over the edge which is the main reason you lose edge bite after stropping
 
Makes a great good difference if you use some diamond paste on hard leather or balsa or other things (like plain old cardboard for instance, you don't need fancy unless you like some fancy in your life). This way you can control to some degree the amount of teeth that you desire to use. Usually a good sweet spot is 3000 or 5000 equivalent grit, with quality paste. I know that most people go for 0.5 micron (roughly 30k grit), but that's just different expectations.
Keep in mind that stropping looks really straightforward, but it's not really that easy. Easy is the way you can kill your edge with this.
 
Also in my finding and others that putting abrasive on a soft backing more than doubles the effective grit rating or at least the result. That's why a 2k abrasive on a powered wheel or belt can give course to a mirror finish
 
A lateral sweep on a stone removes a burr with all but some stainless. It takes a little practice. Light to remove burr without pushing it to other side of edge. This is done at same spine off the stone as last sharpening angle. Covering all the blade heel to tip in one sweep. Call it one second burr removal.

A stack of newspaper is good for removing any residual burr. One or two sweeps on each side is enough no need 10-20 strokes more is not better.

I teach burr removal is a light touch and less is best.
 
As a rule of thumb of my own, after stropping, if I cut some cardboard and the edge can easily pass some popular tests like shaving, tomato, nail, fingers and so on and so forth, the sharpening was clean and the stropping didn't mess it up.
 
Exactly. It's the perfect stropping surface. A nice cordovan strop isn't exactly cheap either
 
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