[rick-in-seattle]

I have been asked several times how to strop without rounding your knife blade.
(1) It is important that the strop base be flat and hard.
(2) The leather used should not compress when pressure is applied.
(3) Stropping at an angle reduces the tendency to roll the blade.

[AlArchie]

Rick, there is another way to reduce rounding the edge while stropping. I think I mentioned this before, but maybe not on this forum. Anyway, instead of flipping the blade over the sharp edge, flip it over the BACK. I was told this by an old barber friend of mine. All you have to do is change your grip on the knife, and it works just as easy. Does take a bit of getting used to, though.

Works for me.

Al

[Thomp]

thanks rick even us older carvers or experianced and should know better, need to be reminded often to quit messing up...

now if i could find the right way to power hone with small wheels close to the motor housing, i'd be set...

[Manteo]

Thanks Rick. I never though of that. Perhaps that's what I been doing wrong since I seem to be incapable of maintaining the edge.

Manteo

[Eddy Smiles]

Rick... Thanks for the tip. I've always stropped at an angle because it seemed easier to ensure that the entire length of the blade was stropped but I never knew that I was accidently doing something right for a change! Now I know!

[don]

Back when it was first mentioned I started using the backwards flipover AlArchie described. It wasn't that hard to get used to and it does indeed work. Don't think I ever said thanks for the tip . So Al, Thanks for the tip! Don

[Capt. Bandaid]

When I have stoned an edge and move to the strop to finish it, I look at the surface of the strop for little scratches the burr edge will leave. Tip the blade up just enough to leave these scratches. Stop when you get a smooth surface after the edge moves over the strop. You can also listen for the "Hiss" of the burr against the strop. Tip it just enough to hear the hiss. I am not a big fan of extensive stropping as it seems you can loose track of the tilt of the blade and dull the edge in a heatbeat. I used to have access to a diamond lapping wheel in a metallurgical lab. All my gouges and chisles had mirror polished cutting bevels. Can't do that now so everything is done by hand.

[mdallensr]

Cap't, you're taking me back to the good old days of my Met. Lab. When I read about these new "scary sharp" techniques and all of the stropping compounds, I can go back a LOT of years to all of those things in my lab. Plus, we had every camera and lens you could imagine for table-top photography, macro-photography and photomicrography (including micro-hardness testing), not to mention the electron microscopy. And the complete black and white and color darkroom..... Ah, the good ole days. I miss the R&D work but, at the time, I wanted to be closer to the business end of the business. No regrets (most of the time). Mike