To strop or not to strop....

[Sean Hughto]

Sometimes I strop and can't stop.
Other times I strop til I drop.
I use to sing "strop! in the name of love."
When I was cop I would shout "strop or I'll shoot!"
Strop me before I strop again, Winton!
I stropped the law and the law won.
If you catch fire in the shop, strop, drop and roll!
Zebras have black and white strops.
Commit to your strop, don't flip flop.
Strop usage or not seems to have stirred a tempest in teapot.
And Winton seems to be a strop despot.
Maybe not?

Don't dub me cause I'm close to the edge!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4o8...4o8TeqKhgY#t=0

[Chris Fournier]

Well Sean really said it all and eloquently at that.

I have never stropped chisels or plane blades and never will. I go back to the stone and give it a quick lick. Done.

I do have a strop for gouges, why? I always have, not a good answer I know.

[David Weaver]

why does not alternating strokes on the stone bend the wire edge until it falls off? Does it just keep lengthening?

Is this wire edge visible? I can feel my fingernail catch after a preliminary stone but i can rarely see the edge and rarely can i even feel anything after a finishing stone. That little manual they have on sharpening at Tools for Working Wood says that it sometimes falls off in a sliver on the stone and the pic of it looked like a fish hook. I must be doing something really wrong.

When stropping the back of the tool do you lift it at all? I rub things on my hands or arms now and the times it works best are when i work at angles higher than on the stone.

Barber strops seem to be of the hanging variety that are pulled taut while it seems most of you use something adhered to a board. Why the difference?

On a properly honed edge, stropping removes the wire edge (which can sometimes be a set of several long pieces, and other times just a bunch of ragged bits - meaning it can sometimes show up visibly, but if you're not looking for it it often doesn't, and sometimes you might just think it's a contaminant on your strop if it comes off and is sitting on it. It can look like a very thin hairlike piece).

Stropping on a tool and razor is a bit different for two reasons, first you are expecting perfection out of a razor edge (or as close as can be achieved), and second, the final bevel on a razor edge is about 17 or 18 degrees, and you really don't want it to be steeper or thicker than it has to be. 17 or 18 degrees is fragile, and if a razor isn't up to par quality-wise, sometimes stropping will damage the edge a little bit and you just never quite get the edge you want out of it. On a razor like that, the new trick (old trick?) on razor forums is to put electrical tape on the spine or a razor for finish honing because it makes the edge a bit steeper. I have seen people say "this edge wouldn't settle down until i used four pieces of electrical tape", meaning four layers thick.

On a tool, your final bevel is somewhere between 25 and 35 degrees most of the time, and the fragility of the edge doesn't exist. You're stropping briskly or otherwise to remove any trash that's left on the edge after honing to try to reveal the thinnest part of the edge. It is still important that an unloaded strop of this type is clean, as little bits of metal or grit can nick the edges. It's not hard to keep a strop clean if you pay attention to what you're doing, but it's hard to keep it clean if you just keep it laying face up out in the open all the time.

It's not critical that you keep a tool edge at a specific angle on the strop, I personally like to keep an edge somewhere close to the bevel and strop back and front. I think that gives the most step-up in sharpness from whatever you've gone to and from. The thicker the wire edge, the more pressure you need (if you do some harsh brisk stropping off of a soft arkansas, you can get an edge that's stepped up well and will shave hair despite a coarse stone, but if you do the same thing coming off of a finely settled translucent arkansas, you may not be very happy with the results). Anyway, that translates to stropping off of a coarser stone should be a little more brisk, but the briskness doesn't do anything to help off of a finer stone and a little bit more touch is helpful.

I like a bare leather strop smooth side out and with a little bit of oil on it so that I can see whether there are lines on the strop - if there are and they disappear, I know I've refined the edge and all I have to do is shave hair on my arm to test it and it's easily proved. If the lines don't want to come out and there are a lot of them, I probably have a very coarse wire edge and didn't finsh as well as I thought (this is only the kind of thing that happens when you prepare a new iron and you didn't get it as flat as you think - and it is specifically why you want to have a flat iron back for the last fraction of the edge - so that you can work the wire edge thinner before stropping.

Razor stropping is done on a hanging strop because the pressure on the edge should be somewhat minimal, but you still need the whole edge to be contacted by the strop. A settled in razor strop will reflect an image, it is miles more carefully prepared than a tooling strop. Most new strops are not well conditioned, and will be improved with a couple of thousand razor strokes on them. I'd imagine the old ones were probably like that, though, too. Use makes them better, and much care to leave them hanging in an area where they won't get dirty. The razor is carefully stropped with the spine on the strop *never* leaving the strop when the razor is moving. the razor is flipped back and forth with the spine staying on the strop. Lifting the back can ruin the edge, and the term for it is "rolling the edge", at least that's how I've seen it. Stropping without lifting the spine of a razor is a basic skill needed to shave with a straight razor, and beginners are sometimes rough on razors and strops.

there is no substitute for a razor strop, an edge is never finished as well as it is with good horse leather on anything else, and another nice skill to have with razors is to always work with a stropped edge and hone only to thin the thickness of the edge, never working all of the way to it. Over time a very strong, polished and very keen but smooth edge develops.

I'm not referencing any compounds in the above, because they are more honing than stropping.

As far as the leather goes, for anyone looking to strop a lot of things (it's really a nice skill to have, to be able to use bare leather with good effect), vegetable tanned cowhide can be had all over the place cheaply, and horse butt strips and other scraps of it can also be had a lot more cheaply than they can be had from woodworking or razor retailers. Just search them on ebay and look for a piece that looks relatively clear. If your shop strop gets dirty, which it inevitably will even just with metal swarf that it cleans off of an edge, you can scrape it with a card scraper and re-oil it. You can also sand a strop, but risk sandpaper contamination (though that should be something you could brush out). I use cow leather in the shop most of the time and horse leather exclusively for razors. Nothing else is as good as horse leather (either cordovan or broken in horse butt) for razors. 8/9 ounce veg leather is what I like in the shop, and if I can get horse butt in that weight, I like it, but sometimes it's not available in anything other than lighter weights. It has a woody feel when it's glued to wood.

Shaving strops for me are hanging (can get good edge contact without much pressure), 100% and all of my tooling strops are glued to scrap wood (just use hide glue or whatever and clamp the strop to another piece of wood to get it nicely adhered) because stropping is a firmer thing in the shop and a firmer substrate is nice.

One has to ask what's so great about stropping in the shop if you can just get an ultrafine stone and avoid it, and I'd say the ease of using a single stone or two stones where the geometry of the edge is protected more than it would be if you used a whole bunch of stones. You can use an ultrafine stone in place of a strop, though, and just use it sparingly so that it's just polishing the edge (and not worrying about mirror polishing a whole lot of metal). I just like the leather better.

[george wilson]

In the morning,they will be wondering how a strip is missing off one of the carriage horse's rear ends down in Williamsburg!!

[David Weaver]

You can make your own strop if you have a straight edge and a sharp knife!!

(that's true!)

If you try to get the cordovan shells off of the horse while it's still walking around, i'm not responsible!!

[Winton Applegate]

Warren's

Ridiculous.

Think formula one verses stock car racing. Some are satisfied with making only left hand turns and cruising about one speed.

There is a whole other world of braking, turning right, hair pin turns, up hill, down hill and long straight aways. Please don’t limit me because you haven’t been outside the bowl.

PS: I would love to see some examples (photos) of the superior or at lest comparable results from the strop meisters. And comments on longevity of the stroppies on the difficult stuff. I know the answer though because I been down that road and up the hill, around the hair pin and down that long back straight. You can throw brute horse power at a thing or accomplish even more with sophistication and finesse.

[David Weaver]

There's only a superiority in razors, but it's there in razors. The thinness and smoothness of the woodworking edge doesn't really matter much once you get to a micron in aluminum oxide terms.

The only picture I know showing a bevel at half the thickness after stropping is on another forum, and linking to other forums is prohibited.

[Winton Applegate]

Japanese swords are sharpened,and how the shape of their cutting edge allows them to cut flesh more easily-it parts the flesh open,causing less drag on the sides of the sword.

See bellow my ramblings yet again about my inexpensive Swiss Army Bantom knife. Similar . . .

There is obviously much more to the sword . . . it has to cut through tenon and bone. Wet bone yes but harder than flesh.

I know that you know that I know that you know that I know you know. Obviously.

I think what the OP has gained is not confusion. I hope. But a chance to try out some methods and learn from the experience. Hopefully he has learned that some methods don’t necessarily need to be combined with others. For example he doesn’t have to precision sharpen carving tools with a jig. He doesn’t have to buy five hundred dollars worth of sharpening stones (right away) he can get very good results with some maple (or mdf though mdf has contaminating grit in it that can be avoided by using wood) and so just put one or more honing compounds on some wood blocks, planed flat first, and do well.

He has learned that when plaining softer wood he might want to” touch up” a blade to get a little more out of it before going to the stones. I wouldn’t recommend that on purple heart or bubinga the life of the edge is very brief and chatter is all too soon to appear.

He may have learned, if he is imaginative and can visualize it, that this carries over to the softer wood as well to a lesser degree.

I will say that I have a pile of folding pocket knives here. I have been trying to like some thicker knives for every day carry and use such as cutting thick wire ties and cutting open those bullet proof plastic sealed display packs that so many every day items come in.

I keep coming back to this knife.
I had twenty years ago written off Swiss Army knives because they didn’t “hold an edge” long for me. I was wrong. I needed to learn more about edge geometry.
I was using the stock edge which was a pretty obtuse angle. I now sharpen at a very shallow angle ON THIS POCKET KNIFE and the edge lasts and lasts FOR CUTTING THESE plastics and card board items etc., until I cut into grit or hit a staple.

This knife does it for me because it is so thin. There is very little resistance when cutting plastic, which can be hard to cut. Try out your Buck lock back deer disassembler with the thickish blade on the plastic packages if you doubt me and then try a sharpened box knife. You will leave that big hunk of brass and lumber at home and carry the cheepy box knife. Gurrrrrrenteeed.

What does that have to do with anything ? First impressions can be deceiving. There is more to a cutting tool than an initially sharp edge. Geometry is huge. Drag on the bevel or side of the blade is huge.

I AM GLAD DAVID EXPLAINED THE DEAL WITH THE REAL STROPS. Most interesting for removing the very light wire edge and the effect it has on the steel edge at the microscopic level. Be sure to realize this is a light wire edge as he has said not the one that comes off the coarse stone. (scratches on the leather shows the not ready to be stropped edge)

PS:
David,

Finding photos.

The photo was taken by M.D. WHITE (near as I can tell).
Was this the plane someone mentioned seeing

Small plane for big hands

? I was going to ask but then from reading decided it must be.

See . . .
where there is a will there is a way.

PPS: I didn't miss the info on the washita and the just right steel almost too hard. There are yet wilder skies for me to explore such as you put forward. Interesting.

[Winton Applegate]

Don't dub me cause I'm close to the edge!.

NICE PINK BOOTS !

Hey man thanks for lightening the mood with your creativity there.
Much needed.

[ian maybury]

Must say I think it's been a very good thread, with great contributions. (as is often the case around here) Some humour, some art (even), some seriousness, no nastiness, lots of perspectives and lots of experience based information coming on to the table in one place.

I guess the issue that we inevitably run into is that there typically in matters of woodworking and tool technique rarely the luxury of an always 100% applicable answer that can be written in words of one syllable.

We discussed it before in the context of the Chinese gent causally doing remarkable things with simple tools in David's video series. There really isn't much option in these matters but to read, think it through, make the choice you think will fit your needs, try it, adjust based on the experience, and repeat ad infinitum. Then after x sessions and with appropriate aptitiude and application you're an expert...

The advantage i guess for the benefit of the OP is that while definitive answers are not necessarily provided, a thread like this does a great job of creating a menu of options for us to consider, think through and then choose from. (my issue from working in isolation for so many years in a fairly casual way was that i'd no idea what waterstones were capable of) i.e. the learning process can be considerably shortened, and techniques introduced that we had no awareness of.

On strop or not strop. Waterstones worked down to the finer grits with the Charlesworth/Lie Nielsen technique and a honing guide offer a relatively trouble free route to quickly producing edges to the highest of standard, and with great control of geometry. It's a very good place from which to start precisely because it delivers to such a high standard. My personal instinct having established this benchmark is only then to cautiously trial some carefully chosen stropping techniques (which may or may not deliver improvements in sharpness and/or convenience) - and be led by the results...

[david charlesworth]

Polishing with fine waterstones, (8, 10 or 15,000 grit) I usually notice the wire edge floating off on the stone or sometimes the sponge cloth which I wipe the blade on.

Sometimes I look at the edge with a 40X microscope, and rarely see any trace of wire edge. If I do see wire edge I tend to assume sharpening has not gone right.

Seem to remember someone suggesting that many stropping compounds were coarser than a polishing stone?

How different from the old days when a wire edge from a new fine India stone took some shifting.

My boss stropped on his hand. There was dragging through end grain, and stropping on leather and jewellers rouge.

best wishes,
David

[Graham Haydon]

Mike, sounds like the strop is working great for you, keep doing it! I also strop and find it makes for a lovely edge. On making it last longer I don't know. If it gets dull a sharpen only takes a moment so I rarely notice taking the time out.

[David Weaver]

Polishing with fine waterstones, (8, 10 or 15,000 grit) I usually notice the wire edge floating off on the stone or sometimes the sponge cloth which I wipe the blade on.

Sometimes I look at the edge with a 40X microscope, and rarely see any trace of wire edge. If I do see wire edge I tend to assume sharpening has not gone right.

Seem to remember someone suggesting that many stropping compounds were coarser than a polishing stone?

How different from the old days when a wire edge from a new fine India stone took some shifting.

My boss stropped on his hand. There was dragging through end grain, and stropping on leather and jewellers rouge.

best wishes,
David

If compounds are chosen from the inexpensive types filled with aluminum oxide (gold, white, green, even rouges), its true that they have some coarseness. There are many graded compounds now that are finer than any stone, though, and some are inexpensive.

The shapton 15k edge is a nice one. For years, before getting natural stones, I didn't know what all of the fluff about wire edges was about....until I used the 15k to hone a straight razor.

[george wilson]

I have a harness maker friend who I can get some cordovan from. But then,I'm not trying to strop razors. Might be fun to try on my knife.

[Jim Matthews]

Didn't I see a fine linen strop being sold for razors?

Seems to me there must be some fashion accessory out their
that could provide an analogous surface.

Like a Rayon necktie, frinstans.