I know what you're talking about, Clay. I go for the same action with my paddle strop.

As an aside, the "normal" motion is very touchy with the strops. Second knife and I've already nicked one.... I was trying to always go up but it isn't that easy when moving along the edge. Maybe I should just go straight up, and not try to go along the edge?

Ken

so multiple mostly up and slightly forward strokes, progressing down the length of the blade should be fine.

Hi Clay,

I have always tryed to get just enough compound on the media so that is slides easily along the blade. My thought is that the abrasive is doing the work and at this point more strokes with a light touch will get the finest edge. Conceptually I am just trying to refine the edge with the finer abrasives. This sort of substitutes for honing, because, in theory, I am straigtening the edge bu controlling the angle and using the abrasive to do the work. If I put enough compound on the strop so that it grabs the blade, I have been taking some off until it is nice and smooth. In light of what you are saying, maybe this is counterproductive.

As for your third elemant of stropping, I still have a hard time understanding how we are getting any burnishing with leather on hardened steel. I mean, the plastic flow of metal due to pressure being caused by leather sliding over the metal is hard for me to grasp as a concept.

You mentioned that you were doing some work with a person at Sandia National labs on this concept. Have you got anything new to share on it? I would love to be proven wrong on this, giving me another area to try to perfect.

Anyway, my stropping is doing something. I can "feel" the difference in the edge after the stones and between each grade of abrasive. Even the 0.025 micron abrasive on nanocloth makes a noticeable difference in the sound and ease of push cutting and the feel of the edge on my thumb...and especially in shaving. These strops slide across the blade with almost no resistance.

I may have to load some strops up, pump up the stiction factor and see what I get...


Phil

The way the paste works on the strops for knife sharpening is fascinating and has been much discussed in other threads, so in this post, I'm just going to kick off the conversation about how much paste to apply and how often. There are essentially three different actions that the strops perform:

1. Abrading
2. Honing
3. Burnishing

The amount of paste on the strops will directly affect the ratio of burnishing:abrading, honing:abrading, honing:burnishing. I've found that I don't need a whole lot of paste to get my ideal ratio going. My preference for stropping is a to have the ratio weighted more heavily toward burnishing and honing. When the strop is burnishing well, it's also honing well. This happens when there is considerable "stiction" between the leather and the metal which occurs when there is enough paste to create a tight seal between the metal and leather, but not so much that the paste begins to lubricate. Having more heavily pasted strops will give you more abrasion and less burnishing and honing. I start out a fresh set of strops with the equivalent of a thin bead about 1" long shared between the two strops. I work that in by rubbing the strops together, working the paste in as well as I can. If I'm patient enough, I'll let the paste dry. From there, I'll use the strops a lot until they start to get tacky. If they don't get tacky after a lot of stropping, I'll apply just a little more paste and repeat the process. Once the strops are tacky feeling against the blade, they're just right for my taste. I usually only reapply the paste after 50-100 knives and only then just a little.

Please share your thoughts and experiences on applying and reapplying the paste.