What's the ultimate strop for regular touching up of kitchen knives?

Japanese Knives - by Tokushu Knife
Shop Knives and stones on ebay
Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Knifehobbyist said:
How do you prevent the mistake of rouding the edges? Any tips? Thanks
Click to expand...


Here’s my 2c fwiw...

This isn’t really a problem with kitchen knives ime. If the edge isn’t sturdy enough to hold up to slightly inaccurate stropping then it’s going to collapse more significantly as soon as it hits a board anyway.

Also - the physics of stropping edge trailing with compound simply make it quite difficult to round an edge that much, even if done not particularly well.


(Others’ opinions may differ though!)
 
HumbleHomeCook said:
That person hasn't logged into the forum five years so it might be a while before you get a response. ;)

Angle and pressure are the keys to reducing convexity on leather but you'll never really stop it. Some like a touch of it at the very apex.

If you're angle is too high or you press into the leather too much then it will round your apex.
Click to expand...
Wow, thanks! I read to do very hallow angles, is that true? Have you ever used 3m Trizact? 5000 to strop
 
cotedupy said:
Here’s my 2c fwiw...

This isn’t really a problem with kitchen knives ime. If the edge isn’t sturdy enough to hold up to slightly inaccurate stropping then it’s going to collapse more significantly as soon as it hits a board anyway.

Also - the physics of stropping edge trailing with compound simply make it quite difficult to round an edge that much, even if done not particularly well.


(Others’ opinions may differ though!)
Click to expand...
Great, you just confirm my theory! The edge trail technique shouldn’t round the apex.
 
Knifehobbyist said:
Wow, thanks! I read to do very hallow angles, is that true? Have you ever used 3m Trizact? 5000 to strop
Click to expand...

For reasons I've never truly understood, stropping seems to be one of the most controversial and debated topics in sharpening. So, you're going to get a lot of differing inputs. Because of that, this is one of those things where you really do need to do some experimenting to find what you like.

On leather, I try to strop at the angle I sharpened or maybe a titch higher and my pressure can range from light to moderate. I've done higher pressure and higher angles and it ain't for me. If you're too shallow though, you won't really be doing much.

These days I use a strop primarily only for edge maintenance or maybe a nice finish to sharpening but not burr removal. I started sharpening 40+ years ago and let's say I started to figure it out eight or ten years ago. :) In those 8-10 years I've played around quite a bit with stropping but there is always new experiences to ponder. Case in point, I recently found myself needing some new green compound.

Wanted some good stuff this time and bought some from Bernal Cutlery. In his video demo, Josh discusses how to coat the entire strop with it. I've normally just sort of haphazardly applied it and rather lightly. So, my little bottle comes and I follow Josh's direction. Then I strop some shirogami on it.

Whoa!

First, the paste is indeed much better quality and far more consistent than what I'd used in the past. So it works much better. Then having that amount on my strop changed the results as well. What I got was a HIGHLY polished edge bevel that was too slick for my liking. Now, that is a positive reflection of Josh's product, and certainly not a negative one. It means, that if/when I use that strop, I need to limit my passes to a couple of very light strokes.

Also, to @cotedupy's point, with leather, it is pretty hard to round the apex to the point of poor performance. As I said, many people like that bit of convexity it can provide.

I haven't tried the product you mentioned. For the most part, my stropping tools are simple. Cardboard does a lot or a two-sided leather strop with some compound on one side. I do have high-vanadium steels in pocket knives and for those I use diamond lapping film on a piece of poly.
 
Last edited:
If you make the knife come to a complete stop before lifting it off your strop it really helps with the edge rounding problems.
 
A little side step to the stropping subject:

I finish deburring after sharpening with edge leading strokes, light pressure on my last stone.
I do this as good as possible: I admit I find it very hard to do a complete heel to tip sweep and holding the right angle all along the knife. I sharpen in sections.
Sooner or later, I have to stop before all burr is removed, or I will ruin the edge at some point by over angling some sections. This ofcourse, is part of the learning journey. So when I do the flashlight trick to look for burr, sometimes I see a little part light up. Too small for me to improve at this point with my skills with leading strokes on the stone. So I settle for now.
There is an improvement in performance in testing media (newspaper) before doing edge leading strokes and after and by feeling with fingertips.

When I try newspaper stropping after this, I can't seem to notice any difference in performance. I've tried way too high angles aswell, to confirm I'm atleast hitting the very edge.
A leather strop with 1 micron diamond paste/spray gives me a noticable keener edge cutting through newspaper and feeling with the finger tips.

What could it be the newspaper doesn't change anything? Many like it here, so it must do something.

Is my burr too big for the abrasiveness of newspaper to handle?
 
Kawa said:
A little side step to the stropping subject:

I finish deburring after sharpening with edge leading strokes, light pressure on my last stone.
I do this as good as possible: I admit I find it very hard to do a complete heel to tip sweep and holding the right angle all along the knife. I sharpen in sections.
Sooner or later, I have to stop before all burr is removed, or I will ruin the edge at some point by over angling some sections. This ofcourse, is part of the learning journey. So when I do the flashlight trick to look for burr, sometimes I see a little part light up. Too small for me to improve at this point with my skills with leading strokes on the stone. So I settle for now.
There is an improvement in performance in testing media (newspaper) before doing edge leading strokes and after and by feeling with fingertips.

When I try newspaper stropping after this, I can't seem to notice any difference in performance. I've tried way too high angles aswell, to confirm I'm atleast hitting the very edge.
A leather strop with 1 micron diamond paste/spray gives me a noticable keener edge cutting through newspaper and feeling with the finger tips.

What could it be the newspaper doesn't change anything? Many like it here, so it must do something.

Is my burr too big for the abrasiveness of newspaper to handle?
Click to expand...

It's just the difference in having compound vs. no compound. I suspect if you put compound on the newspaper, you'd see a difference.

I'm often not steady enough to get a full really clean de-burr off stones. So I grab a strop. I'm not anti-strop . If it works for you then there's nothing wrong with it as far as I'm concerned.

:)
 
IMO, to help avoid rounding you need something with very little give. I use thin kangaroo leather bonded to hard wood. You could paste it, but I use it after a stone.

86FCE9B6-D6D4-4EA9-A38D-F9976D3DB104.jpeg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top