using a strop [Archive] - Sawmill Creek Woodworking Community

Jim Koepke

01-21-2010, 4:41 AM

Tom,

Welcome to the Creek. Your profile does not show your location. If you live close to other Creekers, you might find one or two willing to offer some one on one time.

I do not use stropping now as much as back when my razor needed to be stropped. Like so many things, too much of a good thing can be bad.

As you have noticed, the strop does make the bevel and the back much smoother. More than just a little can start to "smooth" or round the edge the honing creates. Even with a fresh surface on my 8000 stone, there are still minute scratches on the face of the bevel and the back. This is where a couple passes on the strop can clean these up to make a finer edge. Much more than two or three strokes, and you can start to loose the edge.

Imagine the surface of the strop being compressed as the back or the bevel is being pulled over it. As the edge passes a point, the material will decompress in an upward motion on the very edge you are trying to improve.

After performing a few cuts with a tool, the edge may be microscopically pushed over. Many woodworkers will give it a few more strokes on the strop to renew the edge. It is similar to my practice of as soon as it is noticed a blade is not performing at its best, it gets a few laps on a stone. The sooner and edge is attended to, the less work is required to renew the edge. One can go a little overboard on this and wear the edge quicker. It is all a balance. After doing this a while, you will notice each cut gets a little more rough. All too often, we compare each cut to the last one instead of to the first one off the stones.

That is all theory, now someone who has the practical use of stropping can come in and give a real answer.:rolleyes:

jim

Derek Cohen

01-21-2010, 8:58 AM

Hi Tom

I have a tutorial on stropping in this article ..

Stropping with Green Rouge verses Diamond Paste: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/WoodworkTechniques/Stroppingwithgreenrougeversesdiamondpaste.html

Regards from Perth

Derek

Maurice Ungaro

01-21-2010, 9:06 AM

Thank you Derek - Very straight forward and concise! I had been wondering about the virtues of diamond paste over those of the green rouge.

John Eaton

01-21-2010, 9:58 AM

I find on very sharp tools, say those with acute angles for carving, the strop will revive the edge very quickly - I try to keep a strap near where I'm working. I can usually strop a handful of times before needing to freshen up the edge on a stone and because the strope is right there it saves a lot of time.

-- John

george wilson

01-21-2010, 10:14 AM

Jim is right: Too much stropping will begin to round the edge too much. This is why I never power strop.

Sandy Stanford

01-21-2010, 11:32 AM

I'm wanting to know exactly how to use a strop in my sharpening routine.

I've got me an old leather belt, really smooth and tight leather. Ans I picked up a stick of yellow flexcut compound from woodcraft as well.

I've been using the strop with the flexcut a few times now. i'm not seeing any miraculous improvements other than polishing to a higher level. I go the opposite direction as honing, keep the blade at as close to the bevel angle as possible and put a good amount of pressure on it while making my pass. i also strop the back side of the blades as well. but i do this flat on the strop. (no angle)

i usually hone on waterstones 1000/6000. Keep the stones really flat, check my scratch pattern to make sure im getting even coverage, etc.

any advice on perfecting this?

thanks

If you use very fine grit media like waterstones, 2000 grit sandpaper, ceramic stones, and the like the truth of the matter is that you don't need to strop at all, and in fact in doing so you are probably giving back some of the sharpness you created on your finest stone.

Stropping makes sense if you use oilstones since they simply don't clean up the wire edge completely like very, very fine grit media does.

Some people use a strop as a proxy for a fine stone to which I would say just go back to your fine stone and leave it at that.

If you do decide to strop, for God's sake use paste and not those ridiculous wax bars that are meant for power stropping where the wheel heats up the wax binders releasing the polishing media to the wheel. Glopping up a piece of horse-butt with one of these crayons is silly. Get some valve paste or Dovo strop paste and work the paste into the strop completely and the leather will serve up the right amount of polishing media. The leather, itself, has efficacy in removing shards of the wire edge. Don't completely obscure it with wax based stropping compound. You only need a small amount of paste and not necessarily covering the entire surface of your strop. You can strop on bare leather and there are times when it makes perfect sense to do exactly that.

James Scheffler

01-21-2010, 1:01 PM

If you use very fine grit media like waterstones, 2000 grit sandpaper, ceramic stones, and the like the truth of the matter is that you don't need to strop at all, and in fact in doing so you are probably giving back some of the sharpness you created on your finest stone.

I go up to 2000 grit sandpaper and then hand strop using a wax-based chromium oxide compound. I find the strop makes a definite improvement, as evaluated by taking free-hand shavings of pine endgrain. I just got a sheet of 3M 2500 sandpaper from Lee Valley, and I've also been experimenting a little by using the 0.5 micron (green) abrasive sheets from Lee Valley. I haven't tried the 2500 yet. I'm curious if those will make stropping unnecessary.

I just take 3 - 5 strokes on the strop using light pressure.

Jim

Tom Haney

01-21-2010, 2:02 PM

thanks all for the advice.

i think im just pushing down too hard on the bevel when stropping.

and also, giving too many passes.

thanks

Martin Zielinski

01-21-2010, 2:10 PM

Sandy Stanford

01-22-2010, 12:50 PM

I also go up to 2000 grit sandpaper using the Scary Sharp method. I then strop with LV green compound on a strip of hardboard. I am having a strange experience with this. The tools do feel/behave sharper off the strop, but the surface actually looks more scratched then it looks after final polishing on the 2000 grit sandpaper. Could it be that the grit on the sandpaper breaks down with use and actually polishes to a greater degree then the purported 0.5 micron particles of the compound do? This just keeps on bothering me. Thanks to anyone who could shed some light on this.

I can assure you that stropping on compound impregnated leather after 2,000 or higher grit sandpaper on glass or other equivalent media will do nothing to improve an edge and is quite unnecessary. There is virtually nothing to be gained. The burr is certainly long gone, the metal highly polished already on face and bezel; there is simply nothing for the strop to accomplish and indeed it accomplishes nothing. Any "noticeable" improvement is the woodworking equivalent of the well-known medical phenomenon of the sugar pill placebo effect.

This is especially so for the users of the wax based crayons since inevitably the product leaves ridges on the leather that at the microscopic level are mountains. This does nothing to improve an edge and if you strop too enthusiastically will degrade the quality of the edge you worked hard to achieve with your Scary Sharp set up or expensive stones.

Strops made sense when the finest media available was a black or translucent Arkansas. A black Ark will leave rag behind that the finer waterstones, ceramics, and paper completely remove.

Derek Cohen

01-22-2010, 1:23 PM

I can assure you that stropping on compound impregnated leather after 2,000 or higher grit sandpaper on glass or other equivalent media will do nothing to improve an edge and is quite unnecessary. There is virtually nothing to be gained. The burr is certainly long gone, the metal highly polished already on face and bezel; there is simply nothing for the strop to accomplish and indeed it accomplishes nothing. Any "noticeable" improvement is the woodworking equivalent of the well-known medical phenomenon of the sugar pill placebo effect.

This is especially so for the users of the wax based crayons since inevitably the product leaves ridges on the leather that at the microscopic level are mountains. This does nothing to improve an edge and if you strop too enthusiastically will degrade the quality of the edge you worked hard to achieve with your Scary Sharp set up or expensive stones.

Strops made sense when the finest media available was a black or translucent Arkansas. A black Ark will leave rag behind that the finer waterstones, ceramics, and paper completely remove.

Oh nonsense Charlie.

This is a broken record of yours. Many, many users will confirm that when you add a little mineral oil (I use Johnsons Baby Oil) the green rouge becomes a soft paste and soaks into the leather.

You should see the picture of a strop in Ron Hock's new book (Oh wait, you were quoting this to me on WoodNet, saying that he was the best thing since sliced bread. Have you changed your opinion?). Well, Ron's strop is THICK in green rouge.

As for not improving an edge, well I have posted pictures of it is doing so. I have hard evidence of its effectiveness. What do we have from you?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Sandy Stanford

01-22-2010, 1:58 PM

Hooray for Ron.

It's still all in your imagination.

Please, use a little common sense - going from a precision manufactured stone or highly engineered sheet of abrasive to a piece of highly variable animal hide haphazardly slathered with a grit impregnated bar of wax will not improve an edge.

You want to believe it's so.

It isn't so.

Maurice Fraser on the subject:

"The purpose of stropping is not to abrade more metal, but rather to continue bending, flexing, fatiguing, and burnishing off the miniscule metal strands still clinging to the edge of the blade after the burr breaks off. If you sharpen with waterstones and use a "gold" 8000 grit stone as a final step, stropping is not necessary." End quote and the emphasis added is mine.

I would add that it's not necessary after very high grit papers and hybrid ceramics either but in this particular article Maurice acknowledges that his experience with sandpaper on glass is negligible and Shaptons weren't around when the article was written.

If your edges truly are better after stropping that's not a comment about the efficacy and necessity of stropping but more so on your technique and time investment with the steps that came before. In other words, you stopped honing on your finest stone too soon. And I know you own some very fine honing stones, certainly much better a sharpening media than a piece of leather glued to a piece of wood. It's easy to engineer a scenario that makes stropping seem to be more effective than honing on a very fine, high quality stone.

If you own 8,000 grit or better waterstones, fine/ultra fine ceramic stones, Shaptons, 2,000 grit or better sandpaper or other specialty papers stropping is totally and completely unnecessary if you use your fine stones/papers to full effect.

Brent Beach on the subject:

Stropping helps, right?

Stropping is a big enough issue that I have a separate page showing the results of my stropping tests (http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/Stropping.html). To summarize, all of the stropping compounds that I have tested have larger abrasive particles than the 3M 0.5 micron microfinishing abrasive. On the basis of my testing stropping can only produce worse results.
How then to account for all the people who claim that stropping helps? If stropping helps, then there is something else they are doing during honing that they should change -- use different abrasives, use a different honing technique. Stropping will only help if you bring an inferior edge to the strop.

James Scheffler

01-22-2010, 3:40 PM

If stropping helps, then there is something else they are doing during honing that they should change -- use different abrasives, use a different honing technique. Stropping will only help if you bring an inferior edge to the strop.

If this turns out to be true, I would have to say that it's easier and quicker (as well as adequate for most purposes) to bring an inferior edge to the strop than achieve a perfect edge on a stone or sandpaper. (At least given my decent but imperfect sharpening skills).

Jim

Sandy Stanford

01-22-2010, 3:52 PM

If this turns out to be true, I would have to say that it's easier and quicker (as well as adequate for most purposes) to bring an inferior edge to the strop than achieve a perfect edge on a stone or sandpaper. (At least given my decent but imperfect sharpening skills).

Jim

Beach was not issuing a guarantee that a strop improves, always and everywhere, an already inadequate edge.

If what brought an inferior edge to the strop was poor technique then there would be little hope that all of a sudden technique gets better when standing in front of the strop. If you can't hone on a stone, I doubt it gets much better on a strop. I would expect a bad edge to get worse, especially on a charged strop since you're still removing steel. Now you're using bad technique on a medium that flexes and compresses underneath the tool. I'm hard pressed to see that as a helpful combination.

Mark Roderick

01-22-2010, 4:28 PM

Sandy Stanford

01-22-2010, 4:50 PM

In my experience, stropping a blade on green compound definitely improves the edge, no question about it. By that I mean there is a very noticeable improvement in the cutting performance of the edge before and after.

In addition, on the advice of someone here, maybe Derek, I have found that if I strop frequently I can cut way back on the number of actual sharpenings. With my dovetail chisels I have found that I can do away with actual sharpenings entirely. Although I have no scientific evidence, I would think implies that stropping is abrading the metal.

In any case, this is my experience, albeit as an amateur.

With all due respect, you've described beautifully a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Abbreviated, aborted, truncated use, misuse, or no use of stones followed by using a strop as a proxy for a honing stone (which you chose not to use to full effect in the first place) results in an "improved" edge.

Of course it does.

James Scheffler

01-22-2010, 4:53 PM

If what brought an inferior edge to the strop was poor technique then there would be little hope that all of a sudden technique gets better when standing in front of the strop. If you can't hone on a stone, I doubt it gets much better on a strop. I would expect a bad edge to get worse, especially on a charged strop since you're still removing steel. Now you're using bad technique on a medium that flexes and compresses underneath the tool. I'm hard pressed to see that as a helpful combination.

I guess my bad stropping technique IS a little better than my horrible honing technique, and that makes all the difference. Either that, or two wrongs really do make a right. :rolleyes:

But seriously, I think this is one of those cases where there is more than one way to get to a good result. That happens a lot in woodworking. And counterintuitive things aren't necessarily wrong.

Jim

P.S. I've seen images of sharpened edges at much higher magnification than depicted in the Brent Beach article. Later on I'm going to look to see if I can find any of those that show the effect of stropping. Don't have time at the moment....

Sandy Stanford

01-22-2010, 5:18 PM

I guess my bad stropping technique IS a little better than my horrible honing technique, and that makes all the difference. Either that, or two wrongs really do make a right. :rolleyes:

But seriously, I think this is one of those cases where there is more than one way to get to a good result. That happens a lot in woodworking. And counterintuitive things aren't necessarily wrong.

Jim

P.S. I've seen images of sharpened edges at much higher magnification than depicted in the Brent Beach article. Later on I'm going to look to see if I can find any of those that show the effect of stropping. Don't have time at the moment....

Strops have been suffering mission creep ever since the so-called Hand Tool Renaissance came into being. We typically want and enjoy the latest in technology (Shaptons anyone?) and also maintain some romantic link to the past. I guess there's something about that piece of leather. A few internet cat-daddies, woodworking suppliers, and employees at woodworking magazines decided that if you could cut a piece of leather to about the same dimension or general conformation as a honing stone that it could BE a honing stone. Add some compound much better formulated for power buffing and you are off to the races. Try to ignore the several hundred dollar investment in quality stones you've made that obviates the whole bloody thing. One is just a cute puffy shirt away from the 18th century. C'mon, man - don't think so.

I think it often boils down to the relatively unknowledgable and undiscerning making a proclamation that "this pile of $hit doesn't smell as bad as that pile of $hit." Well, maybe not but I wouldn't want to consume either pile.

Do look for the micrographs.

FWIW, I still use oilstones. I still use a strop (but not as a honing stone). I've used sandpaper on glass and certainly no stropping was necessary after that method. It didn't bother me. I have other hang ups though. Strops just aren't one of them. Or are they?

Now, where's my puffy shirt?

Mark Roderick

01-22-2010, 7:00 PM

With all due respect, you've described beautifully a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Abbreviated, aborted, truncated use, misuse, or no use of stones followed by using a strop as a proxy for a honing stone (which you chose not to use to full effect in the first place) results in an "improved" edge.

Of course it does.
No, you've misunderstood my post.

I'm saying that I sharpen up to an 8000 grit Norton waterstone and get a fabulous edge. Then I strop on green compound and get a noticeably better edge.

In terms of my competence, I think it's very unlikely that I am really bad sharpening on waterstones but world-class using the same techniques on green compound. Hence, the discrepancy remains.

Your response was therefore very much off the mark and unhelpful to readers trying to decide how and whether to strop.

I'm sure you know a lot more than I do. The question is, how do you explain the facts of my experience? I'm looking for answers here, not an argument.

James Scheffler

01-22-2010, 7:17 PM

Do look for the micrographs.

I checked Leonard Lee's Complete Guide to Sharpening. Sure enough, on pages 32-33, there are micrographs showing an edge honed on an 8000 stone and then after stropping with chromium oxide compound. The stropping clearly improved the edge.

To be fair, it doesn't say if it was a leather strop, wood, or something else.

I'll try to find something online that people can actually look at, instead of taking my word for it. :)

Jim

Sandy Stanford

01-22-2010, 7:36 PM

I checked Leonard Lee's Complete Guide to Sharpening. Sure enough, on pages 32-33, there are micrographs showing an edge honed on an 8000 stone and then after stropping with chromium oxide compound. The stropping clearly improved the edge.

To be fair, it doesn't say if it was a leather strop, wood, or something else.

I'll try to find something online that people can actually look at, instead of taking my word for it. :)

Jim

Hard to argue with Leonard Lee.

Dan Barr

01-22-2010, 10:09 PM

I've wondered about this same thing.

Since a strop can flex, can it really "sharpen" your blade to a higher degree. I'm sure from a particular starting point, yes. But at higher grits, are you really sharpening or is the strop's flexibility rounding the more and more defined edge that you worked so hard to get?

I appreciate the opposite view. I strop my blades regularly. I sometimes notice that I seem to be rounding over the edge that was very crisp. (maybe my technique) Should i just go to a higher stone. say 15000? instead of stropping? this would allow me, beyond doubt, to keep the physical shape of the blade.

is the effect of the leather really rounding over the edge? what evidence is there on both sides?

I would like to think that I compensate for this. I use a thin flat piece of leather glued to a thick piece of plexiglass. however, this leather is porous and has those little pieces/grains that "spring" back up after the edge of the blade passes over.

Could lighter pressure increase the strop's ability to "hone"?

I've ordered the shapton lapping plate. I am now thinking about using my "stropping" compound on this lapping plate to go "beyond" the higest stone. In theory, this should be fine. the lapping plate is perfectly flat and the edge will be maintained because there will be no leather springing up to potentially dub my edge.

any thoughts?

dan

george wilson

01-22-2010, 11:27 PM

I use a strop after honing on a fine white ceramic stone I use a little Flitz,or Simichrome. I think the key is to not strop TOO MUCH,and certainly NEVER power strop. I know some respected guys here who do power strop just fine. It probably has to do with their technique,and what they have on the power strop. I just don't prefer it.

Mike Henderson

01-22-2010, 11:34 PM

Unless I drop a carving tool on the floor or otherwise damage the edge, the only thing I do to them is strop them. I do use a power strop just because it's faster.

And I can absolutely tell the difference between a dull tool and one that's just been stropped so something's happening that's improving the edge.

Mike

[The difference is not only subjective but also objective. When a carving tool (say a gouge) begins to dull, you get lines in your cut. They're small but easily visible. They're due to small defects in the working edge. Any time I see such lines, I take my tool to the strop and sharpen it.

I'd be very surprised if other carvers didn't report the same thing.]

[Added note: I don't strop my woodworking chisels. I find that those work just fine off the stone. But I don't use a stone on my carving chisels because power stropping is faster and when you're carving you want to spend time carving and not sharpening.]

Derek Cohen

01-23-2010, 1:35 AM

One of the reasons for the conflicts over the results of stropping here (and generally) seems to be the different applications that a strop is put to. It seems that we could be talking at cross purposes.

I do not use a strop to hone a blade when I could instead use a waterstone. I use a strop as a quick way of recharging an edge (see my earlier post and link). Using a strop I can extend an edge about three times as long as I would without using it before going to stones. Using a strop takes a few seconds so it makes this process viable.

Charles, you say you use a strop. Tell us about it - what is is made of and what is it used for?

Dan, yes a strop can flex and you can dub a blade, but you can do this on any sharpening media (especially sandpaper). Good technique helps minimise any such occurences.

I watched someone (on YouTube) use a Tormek to power strop the frond AND the back of his blade. Would I do this? No, I have a million reasons why no - but it works for this guy. How do you argue with that?

At the end of the day one experiments and then decides for oneself. What we get on the forum is some help via the experiences of others. That may shortcut the process. However there is always the human factor here - technique and methodology can - and do - alter the results among various users. So at the end of the day we need to determine whether it works, and why.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Jeff Farris

01-23-2010, 11:42 AM

...
I watched someone (on YouTube) use a Tormek to power strop the frond AND the back of his blade. Would I do this? No, I have a million reasons why no - but it works for this guy. How do you argue with that?...

Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek,

I don't want all million reasons why, but could we discuss a couple? I'm pretty sure I'm the guy in the video you're talking about.

Derek Cohen

01-23-2010, 12:03 PM

Hi Jeff

No, this is not about you. Not unless you also known as Vincent .. :)

http://chiconecabinetmakers.com/Videos/default.asp?CHVideo=4

Regards from Perth

Derek

Jeff Farris

01-23-2010, 12:22 PM

I hope people recognize that all it takes to be an expert today is an internet connection and a video camera.

Vincent's technique is not altogether horrid, but it leaves a great deal to be desired.

His stone surface is filthy and could not possibly be cutting efficiently. He went directly from the first step to the strop, which will result in a shiny, but serrated edge. I don't care if you use bench stones or grade your grind stone, but you need that intermediate cut for the strop to do its job effectively.

On the strop, the use of the jig is in my opinion of questionable value (though in the video I produced for Tormek I did it that way), and resting the tool on the rest while honing the back is an absolute recipe for a back beveled edge at best and a dubbed edge at worst.

You have to "kiss" the edge when honing the back, not bear it into the leather.

David Keller NC

01-23-2010, 8:12 PM

I'm saying that I sharpen up to an 8000 grit Norton waterstone and get a fabulous edge. Then I strop on green compound and get a noticeably better edge.

The question is, how do you explain the facts of my experience? I'm looking for answers here, not an argument.

Mark - At least from a metallurgical science perspective, there's a very easy possibility for your observations, though not directly confirmable without a high-magnification reflective microscope: many who use high-grit waterstones get a fabulous polish on the bevel and back, but still do not develop the technique of reversing the orientation of the blade every stroke at the end of the honing cycle. That is, one stroke on the bevel, followed by laying the back flat on the stone and pulling back towards the sharpener. That cycle needs to be repeated a few times (not many - 3 to 5 cycles is enough).

What this does is to remove the micro wire edge on the very point of the cutting planes by honing it off. Many very experienced demonstrators will recommend removing this wire edge on a sponge or a cloth, or in some cases, ignoring that it's there altogether and just proceed to put the blade back into service.

From a practical perspective, it's actually irrelevant whether one hones the wire edge off or breaks it off on a sponge or a cloth (and we're talking the 8000 or 15000 grit wire edge, here - tearing off the wire edge left by a 1000 grit stone will leave a very unsatisfactory edge). The simple reason is that one pass down the board with the plane after such a high-precision honing will render the blade back to "working dull" - certainly sharp enough to feel sharp, and well over what is necessary to work wood with a plane, but definitely not in the condition that it left the stones or the strop.

Anyway - the direct explanation for your observation may well be that the wire edge left by the high-grit stone has not been removed, or it has been torn off by wiping the blade. In such a case, stropping with good technique and good compound would most definitely yield a noticeable difference.

--------------------------

Finally, and this is of course just my opinion, but the primary use of stropping should not be, as Sandy has noted, a substitute for good honing technique on abrasive stones. The primary use of stropping, should be, as Derek noted, a means of rendering a renewed edge to a "working dull" tool that would otherwise require a far more laborious and involved re-honing, even it it's only on the 8000 grit stone.

This is how I use a strop in my shop - I remove the entire blade/chipbreaker assembly from a plane as a unit, and strop the bevel twice on a cowhide strop glued down to a flat piece of wood. One lateral, very light pressure pass on the back restores the cutting edge to well beyond razor sharp in about 15 seconds. Going back to my 8000 grit stone would require disassembly of the chipbreaker, honing, re-oiling, re-installation, re-alignment and registration of the chipbreaker, and re-setting the depth and lateral adjustment on the plane.

Stropping is far faster, but it definitely has limitations. After about 5 to 10 of these stroppings, the edge has been dubbed sufficiently that re-honing is required.

Mark Roderick

01-25-2010, 6:32 PM

george wilson

01-25-2010, 8:01 PM

That curly maple lion's head violin neck I posted months ago was carved with hand stropped carving tools. Don't forget,the pictures make the head look a lot bigger than it really is.

Sandy Stanford

01-26-2010, 9:24 AM

That is indeed a plausible explanation. However, when I hone a plane or chisel blade I DO alternate back and forth, from back to bevel, on alternate strokes, once I get to the 8000 grit Norton.

So is the expert opinion that stropping does nothing to improve the cutting edge of a blade, once you've propertly honed to 8000?

Like Brent Beach, I think stropping with abrasives produces 'tooth' which at first seems to cut better but quickly degrades. I think stropping where metal is abraded is like using a nasal spray with oxymetazoline - the rebound congestion requires that you keep using it to maintain an open airway. You do get to a point where the spray will only work for a few minutes and you ultimately have to go through 'withdrawal' to get off the stuff, or in the case of an edge tool, hone away the rounded bevel that stropping repeatedly with abrasives undoubtedly produces.

I think a quick stropping, on untreated leather, to drag off the rag and remnants of the burr when an oilstone is used is absolutely valid. Otherwise, it's a waste of time.

Read Brent's article on stropping. Even without electron microscopy I think it was reasonably rigorous. One should note that he was using very fine paper to do the initial honing. It's likely this paper does a better job than an 8,000 grit waterstone.

Mark Roderick

01-26-2010, 9:41 AM

For what it's worth, my "strop" is not leather but a piece of MDF with green compound. So I don't think I'm rounding the edge.

My experience is that if I strop regularly I don't have to go back to the stone nearly as often. This seems very worthwhile if only from the point of view that the plane blade or chisel don't wear down as quickly (these blades can be expensive!).

My understanding is that a Norton 8000 grit stone has a particle size of 3 microns, while green honing paste has a particle size of roughly .5 microns. Why does the .5 micron green honing paste put "teeth" on the blade while the 3 micron 8000 grit stone does not? Is it the quality - the consistency - of the material?

Jeff Farris

01-26-2010, 10:49 AM

...
Read Brent's article on stropping. Even without electron microscopy I think it was reasonably rigorous. One should note that he was using very fine paper to do the initial honing. It's likely this paper does a better job than an 8,000 grit waterstone.

After sort of casually watching this thread develop over the last few days, I did read the linked article by Brent Beach. I have a couple of observations.

First, Sandy, you are extrapolating results that Brent specifically excludes in his conclusions. He repeatedly stated that stropping was counter-productive if you were using his method which involved .5 micron micro-fine abrasive. That is a far cry from an 8000 grit waterstone. You've said as much in the above quote, yet you've argued to the contrary for 3 pages of posts.

Honing with compound is a very gentle process and can be very forgiving of all but the absolute worst techniques. This could have something to do with its popularity for the last couple thousand years. Can you get a better edge with a super fine, ultra flat, very hard surface? Possibly, but to create a better edge you will have to have a very precise technique, otherwise you'll either be dubbing your edge or making the back of the bevel really shiny to no effect. The flexibility of leather that a few of you condemn in this thread is the very thing that makes it effective and gives you some latitude in the presentation of the tool.

One note regarding compounds. The stick compounds used by Brent Beach were never developed for manual use. Part of what makes crayon compounds work effectively is heat developed from a high speed rag wheel in contact with the metal being polished. In regard to the Tormek honing wheel, people ask me constantly if they can use green (or any other crayon) honing compound with it. The answer is that you certainly can use it, but it is not as effective as paste compound, because it is never going to get hot enough to work the way it is supposed to. I know Leonard Lee has promoted it for manual use for years, and of course it works, but not as well as it would on a high speed wheel. For low speed and/or manual honing I prefer a paste compound.

Kevin Adams

01-26-2010, 12:10 PM

Jeff, thanks for your input on all this. What are your thoughts on the liquid "green stuff" (if you are even aware of it)? It can be combined with a powder to create a paste in the .5 micron range. I imagine you could use a very fine diamond paste to do the same thing. Have you ever used any of these on the Tormek wheel?

Thanks again.

Kevin

Jeff Farris

01-26-2010, 12:28 PM

Kevin,

Sorry, I'm not familiar with the product you've mentioned. Gotta link? :)

Mark Roderick

01-26-2010, 12:34 PM

It certainly makes sense to me that if you've already "honed" on a .5 micron abrasive, such as one of those green 3M sheets, it doesn't to any good to "strop" on another .5 abrasive, such as green honing compound. But supposed you had "honed" only up to the 3 micron Norton 8000. Wouldn't it make sense that further honing or stropping, whatever you want to call it, on a .5 green sheet would achieve a better-quality edge? Sandy seems to say it would not, and this is the point I'm having a hard time understanding - unless he's saying that the green compound or sheet is of lower quality and therefore puts "teeth" on the edge.

Sandy Stanford

01-26-2010, 1:02 PM

After sort of casually watching this thread develop over the last few days, I did read the linked article by Brent Beach. I have a couple of observations.

First, Sandy, you are extrapolating results that Brent specifically excludes in his conclusions. He repeatedly stated that stropping was counter-productive if you were using his method which involved .5 micron micro-fine abrasive. That is a far cry from an 8000 grit waterstone. You've said as much in the above quote, yet you've argued to the contrary for 3 pages of posts.

Honing with compound is a very gentle process and can be very forgiving of all but the absolute worst techniques. This could have something to do with its popularity for the last couple thousand years. Can you get a better edge with a super fine, ultra flat, very hard surface? Possibly, but to create a better edge you will have to have a very precise technique, otherwise you'll either be dubbing your edge or making the back of the bevel really shiny to no effect. The flexibility of leather that a few of you condemn in this thread is the very thing that makes it effective and gives you some latitude in the presentation of the tool.

One note regarding compounds. The stick compounds used by Brent Beach were never developed for manual use. Part of what makes crayon compounds work effectively is heat developed from a high speed rag wheel in contact with the metal being polished. In regard to the Tormek honing wheel, people ask me constantly if they can use green (or any other crayon) honing compound with it. The answer is that you certainly can use it, but it is not as effective as paste compound, because it is never going to get hot enough to work the way it is supposed to. I know Leonard Lee has promoted it for manual use for years, and of course it works, but not as well as it would on a high speed wheel. For low speed and/or manual honing I prefer a paste compound.

I absolutely agree that the wax sticks are formulated for power honing. I said this in one of my earlier posts in this thread and I've said it on other forums. If one is going to charge a strop there are pastes that are a much better than wax sticks. Dovo strop paste sold through barber supply outlets comes to mind.

As far as for Beach's results - I see them as speaking for themselves. He disclosed his media, his methodologies, and provided photographs of the results - more than just one I might add.

Furthermore, repeated stropping on leather will result in a rounded bevel. Do you dispute that?

I strop my edges. I use oilstones. If I used finer media I would do away with stropping.

With honing stones but a few feet away I have no reason to restore an edge (handplanes/regular bench chisels) on a strop. I can maintain geometry with the stones and pull rag off with a quick pass on an untreated strop. I often read of a woodworker talking about restoring an edge on a strop and in the same breath talk about his Shapton set up. Why not just take it to the fine Shapton? Surely, nobody here is asserting that a treated strop hones better than a fine stone like that? Right?

In certain carving applications the ability to round off a bevel a touch with a strop in order to be able to pivot the tool is and always will be an additive process - it's valuable.

Mark Roderick

01-26-2010, 1:33 PM

Jeff Farris

01-26-2010, 1:39 PM

...

Furthermore, repeated stropping on leather will result in a rounded bevel. Do you dispute that?

So will repeated freehand honing on a bench stone.

... Surely, nobody here is asserting that a treated strop hones better than a fine stone like that? Right?

I don't have any empirical data to support my assertion, but yes, I do think that a leather strop, powered or manual, can freehand hone better than a stone. It is forgiving of misalignment (to a point) and I believe offers more cutting and less rubbing than a super fine stone or abrasive sheet.

If you're dubbing edges with a leather hone, you're doing it wrong.

Sandy Stanford

01-26-2010, 2:54 PM

So will repeated freehand honing on a bench stone.

I don't have any empirical data to support my assertion, but yes, I do think that a leather strop, powered or manual, can freehand hone better than a stone. It is forgiving of misalignment (to a point) and I believe offers more cutting and less rubbing than a super fine stone or abrasive sheet.

If you're dubbing edges with a leather hone, you're doing it wrong.

I think it's widely acknowledged that repeated stropping on charged leather dubs. I'll look up some sources. I have seen it mentioned on several carving sites.

Otherwise, that's an extremely novel theory you are putting forth IMO. I've never really seen it mentioned in the sources I have a strop carrying the weight of honing to the extent you are asserting.

Bob Strawn

01-26-2010, 3:18 PM

I don't have any empirical data to support my assertion, but yes, I do think that a leather strop, powered or manual, can freehand hone better than a stone. It is forgiving of misalignment (to a point) and I believe offers more cutting and less rubbing than a super fine stone or abrasive sheet.

If you're dubbing edges with a leather hone, you're doing it wrong.

I have to agree with Jeff, based on experience and use.

Wear, dubs edges. Stropping might not remove enough material to easily correct this dubbing, but if done properly and regularly, stropping can even slow the dubbing caused by wear. I strop the moment I think the blade is not perfect. Two to four strokes on a side does not take long and keeps tools pretty nice. Paradoxically. the longer you wait between stropping, the more you will dub the blade.

An ideal edge is keen. Such as this side view of an edge on a sharpening surface.

http://toolmakingart.com/images/Sharpening/dubbing/Honing%20No%20dub.jpg

As the edge gets worn down and corrected, and as we rock the blade while stropping or honing, the edge starts to recede from the surface.

http://toolmakingart.com/images/Sharpening/dubbing/Honing%20Duel%20Dubbed.jpg

In the illustration above, without rocking the blade, or grinding down and eliminating the secondary bevel, sharpening on a hard surface means the edge is not going to contact the sharpening media. If you rock the edge, you are as likely to shift the angle even more and this will accelerate dubbing.
If you are sharpening and sharpening and not getting any results, then this is the probable reason, and you need to regrind the edge to true before you can make the edge keen.

A somewhat flexible media, used with a gentle touch will allow for this, without requiring an increased angle. If you strop with an increased angle, you will accelerate dubbing, if you push down hard, you will accelerate dubbing.

Oddly enough a touch of dubbing is not such a bad thing. It strengthens the edge. A dubbed edge can still be keen. The problem is that as it wears down, eventually you will need to either bear down (heaven forbid) or start to shift to a higher angle in order to contact the actual edge and return it to keen.
http://toolmakingart.com/images/Sharpening/dubbing/Stropping%20dubbing.jpg

The effect of stropping and wear in combination could be considered similar to a micro-bevel. A fairly obtuse edge can still cut fibers, as long as it is keen. If you look at the illustration above and think of it as a dubbed blade in use instead of a stropped edge, you can see where wear on a well stropped, slightly dubbed blade, can to a certain degree correct the previous wear damage.

Wear caused by use, combined with regular low pressure stropping at low or no angle, can allow you to continue using an edge for quite a long time. Proper stropping means contact with abrasive, but no strong distortion of the blade or edge. The actual abrasives involved are tiny, so the pounds per inch of force applied as the abrasive drags across the blade can be quite large despite the gentle touch being used.

If when you strop, you stroke the edge more side to side than you drag it base to point, you will tend to produce a smoother, more unified edge and therefore keener edge.

If when you strop, you find yourself needing a higher angle to get results, then it is time to hone or even grind your blade back to true.

Ideally you want a hard, flat slab of leather for your strop.
If you take a section of vegetable tanned leather, preferably horse butt, wet it and then let it dry to the point where it still feels cool and damp, but looks dry, then you can compress it between two flat plates in a vise and turn it into a very hard smooth leather surface. Hammering, at this moisture level, was the traditional method to compress leather for making shoe soles, but this can give an irregular surface that will need to be sanded down before used on a strop. After this drys completely, this can then be glued to a flat board with the flesh side up. The smooth skin side is ok, but the rough textured side is preferred for stropping.

Plain, ungritted leather will strop to as fine an edge as you might want, but will not be as fast as a strop that has been treated.
With fine monocrystalline diamond grit, working it into the leather while it is still wet will make for a faster strop that will hold up a long time. Rubbing a good honing compound (http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=32984&cat=1,43072) on the surface also works wonderfully. I keep my strop barely supple with some non-drying oil. Camellia, olive or Ballistol all work well for this.

When using a strop after you hone, to remove feathers, you should start out flat on the strop with pressure just hard enough to maintain even pressure. The term 'kissing the leather' is pretty much dead on. Raise the angle a bit as you discover the feathers are not coming off. The higher the angle, the more dub, but the faster the feathers are removed. So you want the lowest angle that will flex the feathers enough and wear the feathers base enough for them to come off.

After the feathers are gone and you are touching up the edge, start out stropping with the bevel flat against the strop, take about four strokes on each side and test the edge. If it is not sharp enough, then raise the back of the blade a bit, take four strokes on each side and try again. Once you find the right angle stropping should be pretty fast. Almost all of my blades will sharpen fine, flat on the strop. A few seem a bit more resistant to stropping and need a higher angle. Some only need a couple of strokes to get back to a keen edge.

All of this said, it is very hard to beat a fresh bit of unadorned and untreated vegetable tanned tooling leather for stropping. Just lay it on the table flesh side up and a few gentle even strokes with the flat of the bevel parallel to the leather. This is how I take care of my leather working tools, and they stay wicked sharp. I think the original skin, and perhaps the materials used in tanning put enough of a polishing agent in to allow for a pretty good strop, at least until those materials wear down.

Bob

Kevin Adams

01-26-2010, 4:06 PM

Jeff, the site for the liquid and powder chromium oxide is:

www.handamerican.com/ (http://www.handamerican.com/)

The diamond paste I'm referring to would be the stuff in a tube. Derek used this in his comparison test with the green crayon. I was just wondering how one of these pastes would perform on the Tormek leather wheel. I don't recall what the approx micron is of the Tormek paste, but I don't think it is as fine as .5 micron.

Thanks.
Kevin

Jeff Farris

01-26-2010, 4:48 PM

Kevin,

PA-70 is a blend of sizes from 3 micron down to 1 micron. As each size breaks down, the fresh, but smaller particles take over. This is why I think it has a rather unique ability to cut fast yet leave a completely reflective surface. The products you linked are 3 to 5 times more expensive than PA-70. I suppose they may yield a better surface, but I wouldn't guarantee it, and would it be 3 to 5 times better? The cost of the products would also lead me to question how people would use them. In working with customers on the Tormek, I routinely discover that they are putting on compound the first day they get their machine, and then think it will last for the next 15 years. One extremely thin stripe of compound all the way around the wheel will take care of two or three tools done at the same time. But, then it needs another thin stripe. A little bit frequently is much better than a whole lot once in a blue moon.

A couple of sharpening fanatics over on WoodNet have run some rather exhaustive tests on honing compounds of all types. Both (independently and at different times) came to the conclusion that for either powered or manual honing, nothing they tried was better than PA-70.

Jeff Farris

01-26-2010, 5:12 PM

.... I have seen it mentioned on several carving sites.

Carvers dub their edges because they would rather take a beating than have to reshape their tool. They push the process far past its effective use. They work until the tool isn't performing, then to make the next cut, they cheat the angle while honing and repeat that again and again until their cutting edge is rolled over to the point that their effective cutting angle is in the high 40's to low 50's. That's the impatient carver scenario.

The patient carvers I know hone on leather long before they notice a decrease in performance (as Bob mentioned). They do it carefully and precisely in line with the original bevel. I know some whose tools haven't touched a stone in years.

Sandy Stanford

01-26-2010, 5:29 PM

But Sandy, let's say you had your Shapton 8000 grit a few feet away, and your Shapton 15000 right next to it. Wouldn't you return to the 15000 grit stone to re-touch your blade? And if so, why wouldn't you return to a .5 micron "strop" if it were sitting next to the Shapton 8000 instead?

I doubt it Mark because I think there are other important attributes to a honing stone beyond nominal grit size and I think these attributes apply to your scenario since you are essentially using a strop as a honing stone.

I'm not convinced that a haphazardly charged leather strop won't cut serrations (scratches) into the leading edge of a chisel or plane plane. This is the nasal spray analogy again. A serrated edge doesn't cut all that badly but it breaks down making you go back to the strop over and over again. Contrary to another poster's opinion, I think that will inevitably dub the edge and I frankly don't think it takes to many trips to the strop for this to happen.

My question remains - what do you lacking in your finishing stone causing you to feel the need to continue to abrade metal?

Sandy Stanford

01-26-2010, 5:41 PM

Carvers dub their edges because they would rather take a beating than have to reshape their tool. They push the process far past its effective use. They work until the tool isn't performing, then to make the next cut, they cheat the angle while honing and repeat that again and again until their cutting edge is rolled over to the point that their effective cutting angle is in the high 40's to low 50's. That's the impatient carver scenario.

The patient carvers I know hone on leather long before they notice a decrease in performance (as Bob mentioned). They do it carefully and precisely in line with the original bevel. I know some whose tools haven't touched a stone in years.

A little 'tooth' is not a bad thing to have on a carving tool either.

Jeff Farris

01-26-2010, 5:48 PM

...
I'm not convinced that a haphazardly charged leather strop won't cut serrations (scratches) into the leading edge of a chisel or plane plane. ...
My question remains - what do you lacking in your finishing stone causing you to feel the need to continue to abrade metal?

Then I suggest you not be haphazard in the application of compound. :D

Let me turn your question around, why buy an $150 finishing stone that is about 1 micron, when you can use an $8 tube of compound that has exactly the same (or slightly better) abrasive properties? If you don't like leather, you can use it on MDF, which for practical purposes is as flat as a plate of glass.

One of the aforementioned WoodNet sharpening fanatics recently wrote me privately that he has close to $5,000 worth of bench stones from the very latest designs from Shapton to quarried Japanese natural stones. Today he uses PA-70 on MDF.

Sandy Stanford

01-26-2010, 5:55 PM

I have to agree with Jeff, based on experience and use.

Wear, dubs edges. Stropping might not remove enough material to easily correct this dubbing, but if done properly and regularly, stropping can even slow the dubbing caused by wear. I strop the moment I think the blade is not perfect. Two to four strokes on a side does not take long and keeps tools pretty nice. Paradoxically. the longer you wait between stropping, the more you will dub the blade.

An ideal edge is keen. Such as this side view of an edge on a sharpening surface.

http://toolmakingart.com/images/Sharpening/dubbing/Honing%20No%20dub.jpg

As the edge gets worn down and corrected, and as we rock the blade while stropping or honing, the edge starts to recede from the surface.

http://toolmakingart.com/images/Sharpening/dubbing/Honing%20Duel%20Dubbed.jpg

In the illustration above, without rocking the blade, or grinding down and eliminating the secondary bevel, sharpening on a hard surface means the edge is not going to contact the sharpening media. If you rock the edge, you are as likely to shift the angle even more and this will accelerate dubbing.
If you are sharpening and sharpening and not getting any results, then this is the probable reason, and you need to regrind the edge to true before you can make the edge keen.

A somewhat flexible media, used with a gentle touch will allow for this, without requiring an increased angle. If you strop with an increased angle, you will accelerate dubbing, if you push down hard, you will accelerate dubbing.

Oddly enough a touch of dubbing is not such a bad thing. It strengthens the edge. A dubbed edge can still be keen. The problem is that as it wears down, eventually you will need to either bear down (heaven forbid) or start to shift to a higher angle in order to contact the actual edge and return it to keen.
http://toolmakingart.com/images/Sharpening/dubbing/Stropping%20dubbing.jpg

The effect of stropping and wear in combination could be considered similar to a micro-bevel. A fairly obtuse edge can still cut fibers, as long as it is keen. If you look at the illustration above and think of it as a dubbed blade in use instead of a stropped edge, you can see where wear on a well stropped, slightly dubbed blade, can to a certain degree correct the previous wear damage.

Wear caused by use, combined with regular low pressure stropping at low or no angle, can allow you to continue using an edge for quite a long time. Proper stropping means contact with abrasive, but no strong distortion of the blade or edge. The actual abrasives involved are tiny, so the pounds per inch of force applied as the abrasive drags across the blade can be quite large despite the gentle touch being used.

If when you strop, you stroke the edge more side to side than you drag it base to point, you will tend to produce a smoother, more unified edge and therefore keener edge.

If when you strop, you find yourself needing a higher angle to get results, then it is time to hone or even grind your blade back to true.

Ideally you want a hard, flat slab of leather for your strop.
If you take a section of vegetable tanned leather, preferably horse butt, wet it and then let it dry to the point where it still feels cool and damp, but looks dry, then you can compress it between two flat plates in a vise and turn it into a very hard smooth leather surface. Hammering, at this moisture level, was the traditional method to compress leather for making shoe soles, but this can give an irregular surface that will need to be sanded down before used on a strop. After this drys completely, this can then be glued to a flat board with the flesh side up. The smooth skin side is ok, but the rough textured side is preferred for stropping.

Plain, ungritted leather will strop to as fine an edge as you might want, but will not be as fast as a strop that has been treated.
With fine monocrystalline diamond grit, working it into the leather while it is still wet will make for a faster strop that will hold up a long time. Rubbing a good honing compound (http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=32984&cat=1,43072) on the surface also works wonderfully. I keep my strop barely supple with some non-drying oil. Camellia, olive or Ballistol all work well for this.

When using a strop after you hone, to remove feathers, you should start out flat on the strop with pressure just hard enough to maintain even pressure. The term 'kissing the leather' is pretty much dead on. Raise the angle a bit as you discover the feathers are not coming off. The higher the angle, the more dub, but the faster the feathers are removed. So you want the lowest angle that will flex the feathers enough and wear the feathers base enough for them to come off.

After the feathers are gone and you are touching up the edge, start out stropping with the bevel flat against the strop, take about four strokes on each side and test the edge. If it is not sharp enough, then raise the back of the blade a bit, take four strokes on each side and try again. Once you find the right angle stropping should be pretty fast. Almost all of my blades will sharpen fine, flat on the strop. A few seem a bit more resistant to stropping and need a higher angle. Some only need a couple of strokes to get back to a keen edge.

All of this said, it is very hard to beat a fresh bit of unadorned and untreated vegetable tanned tooling leather for stropping. Just lay it on the table flesh side up and a few gentle even strokes with the flat of the bevel parallel to the leather. This is how I take care of my leather working tools, and they stay wicked sharp. I think the original skin, and perhaps the materials used in tanning put enough of a polishing agent in to allow for a pretty good strop, at least until those materials wear down.

Bob

I strop bench plane irons and bench chisels on uncharged leather purely to remove rag and remnants. I use oilstones. My finest finishing stone is a Black Ark.

If I used high grit papers regularly (I have used them extensively enough) or owned fine grit hybrid ceramics I would not waste my time stropping. I would simply go back to the paper or my ceramic finishing stone. As it is, I go back to my Black Ark because my strop is not set up to abrade. If ever I felt I wasn't getting what I needed from my Ark set up I'd buy a finer stone and the Black Ark would become a 'next to last' stone. I wouldn't use a strop as a proxy for a stone when there are better solutions than doing so.

Simple as that.

As I said in an earlier post, stropping has value for carvers. But the OP is not a carver apparently.

Jeff Farris

01-26-2010, 6:25 PM

A little 'tooth' is not a bad thing to have on a carving tool either.

I know several thousand carvers who would wholeheartedly disagree with you on that.

I'm also not sure where you're coming up with this "tooth" concept. While the article you linked early in this thread mentioned toothy edges, that was in comparison to .5 micron micro-finishing abrasive paper. It was also using compounds that I'm not sure how he chose, but they weren't enlightened choices.

Sandy, I think what a couple of us have tried to point out to you is that there are many paths to a properly prepared edge, not just one. If you don't like to hone with compounds, then don't, but you came on a little strong in the beginning of this thread, comparing compound honing to sugar pills. As the day is waning here, I took my copy of Thomas Lie-Nielsen's sharpening book off the shelf and was glancing through it. I also spent several years working beside Deneb at the Woodworking Shows and discussing sharpening techniques. If high polish is the goal, and I certainly think it is, then looking at TLN's book and Deneb's work, I will stick to leather and compound and/or MDF and compound.

Kevin Adams

01-26-2010, 8:02 PM

Thanks for your thoughts, Jeff. I've been happy with PA-70, but was just wondering about something finer. Diamond paste would be even more expensive and you will run into the same cost:benefit scenario.

Kevin

Jeff Farris

01-26-2010, 8:34 PM

... but was just wondering about something finer.
Kevin

Can I ask why? If you're not getting a mirror (and I do mean mirror) polish, let's figure out why.

Bob Strawn

01-26-2010, 9:13 PM

As I said in an earlier post, stropping has value for carvers. But the OP is not a carver apparently.

Good carvers like good oboe players know sharp. Their tools vary in bevel angle, curve and skew. They do detail work in pine where every other curve is more endgrain than not. A good carver must know leverage, deflection, grain and patience. If you are doing detail work, crunched wood is no good. A carver may wail out their work a bit at the beginning of a project, but details pop off if their tools are not dead on sharp. Take a look David Calvo's (http://www.davidcalvo.com/ornament_oriental.html) work and imagine doing it will dull tools.

I personally use a lot of methods that Brent Beach has detailed. I have learned a lot from him. I agree with most of his points.

Two years ago, I would have argued that a strop was an inferior method. I find that loose grit on a steel plate (http://toolmakingart.com/2008/08/27/using-a-kanaban-and-a-1-2-3-block/) is amazing fast, inexpensive and elegant. Diamond dust bedded into steel by hand pressure (http://battlering.com/overkillsharp.html) is amazingly versatile and can be used to sharpen in ways that almost nothing else can. These are both websites by me, so they serve to illustrate my dedication to these methods.

However my motto is, 'I would rather look stupid today, than be stupid tomorrow.' So I make sure to examine everyone's methods to be sure I have not missed something. When I studied old fashioned shaving, I found out that they still liked strops. When I studied carving, I found that they still, despite all the advancements in technology, liked strops. When I studied leatherworking, I found out that a lot of leatherworkers don't have strops. They need sharp tools to make nice cuts in tough leather, but a lot of them just use the untreated leather they are working, as they go. No need for a special strop or paste.

So I started practicing and playing with strops. I made quite a few strops using wood.
http://toolmakingart.com/images/Gouge%20Strop/Gouge%20Strop%2003.JPG

And I made quite a few leather ones charged with 0-0.25 micron monocrystaline diamond dust.

Over time I learned that I could put a blade back into top end service faster and more easily with a strop than I could with a nice stone, a honing guide, even a belt sander or sharpening wheel. I can carry a strop with me, and use it in the field. I can tap out the blade on my Japanese smoother, touch up the edge, and then tap it back into position to make transparent shavings in less than a minute, and I did not need oil, stones, water or even spit to do it.

I can keep doing it over and over, and unless I have damaged the edge of the blade on a miserable knot, I don't have to pull out a stone or take a lot of care and time to sharpen. More importantly, I am removing the minimum material from the blade. Best of all, this is easy to learn.

Bob

David Keller NC

01-26-2010, 9:17 PM

But Sandy, let's say you had your Shapton 8000 grit a few feet away, and your Shapton 15000 right next to it. Wouldn't you return to the 15000 grit stone to re-touch your blade? And if so, why wouldn't you return to a .5 micron "strop" if it were sitting next to the Shapton 8000 instead?

While not addressed to me, I can (sort of) comment on why I, and other carvers I know strop their edges rather than going back to a stone.

Particularly with a plane blade, it's one whole heck of a lot easier to strop the edge than it is to go back to the honing stone, particularly in my case since I'm using waterstones and I don't store them wet.

But while this discussion (argument?) is academically interesting, I still think it's a distinction without a difference. One pass of the newly sharpened plane down a hardwood board will render defects in the edge far larger than the difference between a freshly honed or freshly stropped blade.

Jeff Farris

01-26-2010, 9:58 PM

Bob,

Thanks for sharing the link to David Calvo's work.

Here's another carver whose work is inspiring, to say the least.

http://davidesterly.com/

george wilson

01-26-2010, 10:52 PM

Bob Strawn

01-26-2010, 11:41 PM

I know a professional life long harness and saddle maker now 75 years old. He says that getting leather knives too sharp is not the most useful thing to do,as cutting the leather quickly removes the super sharp edge. So,he doesn't strop.

This is in reply to the post above that mentions stropping leather tools.

As for loose diamonds,I am very leary about letting loose diamonds possibly contaminate something in the shop-like my metal lathe,etc.. I use diamond stones where the diamonds are trapped in a nickel matrix. Even then,though,I am careful about throwing any wipes used on them into the trash after using them. The trouble with diamonds is that they last a very long time if you get them on any precision sliding surfaces that they somehow land on,turning them into laps.

I think you are wise to have a healthy fear of loose diamonds. They can migrate like invisible grease. When using fine diamond on steel, after a while the grit beds into the steel and makes for a nice sharpening surface. This can be washed off and the diamonds that have bedded into the surface will remain and will function wonderfully. So I use different surfaces for different grits. When working through grits, if you don't clean and wipe down the tools you are sharpening, it is pretty easy to move course grits to finer grit beds and thus ruin them for fine work. I waste a lot of napkins when I am doing diamond work. So while I love diamond grits, I am very careful with them and wear disposable gloves so that my hands don't become vectors of tiny abrasive dust.

Fine aluminum oxide is not as bad as diamond, but it can still be pretty horrid. One time I foolishly decided to polish a cedar workbench with fine aluminum oxide and it bedded into the surface. The only way I found to remove it was to use a scraper. It was an amazing amount of work, since aluminum oxide bedded in cedar is ideal for removing a bur. A few good strokes and It stopped being a good scraper. Fortunately a few more strokes would clean up the scraper and make it ready for burnishing. But I spent as much time burnishing as I did scraping.

On the plus side, eventually the diamonds will probably round off and become nice low friction protective studs on a surface. At least l hope they will. Since diamonds slowly evaporate into the air, I wonder if the really small ones will eventually become sharper, kind of like a file in vinegar.

Bob

Sandy Stanford

01-27-2010, 9:19 AM

Good carvers like good oboe players know sharp. Their tools vary in bevel angle, curve and skew. They do detail work in pine where every other curve is more endgrain than not. A good carver must know leverage, deflection, grain and patience. If you are doing detail work, crunched wood is no good. A carver may wail out their work a bit at the beginning of a project, but details pop off if their tools are not dead on sharp. Take a look David Calvo's (http://www.davidcalvo.com/ornament_oriental.html) work and imagine doing it will dull tools.

I personally use a lot of methods that Brent Beach has detailed. I have learned a lot from him. I agree with most of his points.

Two years ago, I would have argued that a strop was an inferior method. I find that loose grit on a steel plate (http://toolmakingart.com/2008/08/27/using-a-kanaban-and-a-1-2-3-block/) is amazing fast, inexpensive and elegant. Diamond dust bedded into steel by hand pressure (http://battlering.com/overkillsharp.html) is amazingly versatile and can be used to sharpen in ways that almost nothing else can. These are both websites by me, so they serve to illustrate my dedication to these methods.

However my motto is, 'I would rather look stupid today, than be stupid tomorrow.' So I make sure to examine everyone's methods to be sure I have not missed something. When I studied old fashioned shaving, I found out that they still liked strops. When I studied carving, I found that they still, despite all the advancements in technology, liked strops. When I studied leatherworking, I found out that a lot of leatherworkers don't have strops. They need sharp tools to make nice cuts in tough leather, but a lot of them just use the untreated leather they are working, as they go. No need for a special strop or paste.

So I started practicing and playing with strops. I made quite a few strops using wood.
http://toolmakingart.com/images/Gouge%20Strop/Gouge%20Strop%2003.JPG

And I made quite a few leather ones charged with 0-0.25 micron monocrystaline diamond dust.

Over time I learned that I could put a blade back into top end service faster and more easily with a strop than I could with a nice stone, a honing guide, even a belt sander or sharpening wheel. I can carry a strop with me, and use it in the field. I can tap out the blade on my Japanese smoother, touch up the edge, and then tap it back into position to make transparent shavings in less than a minute, and I did not need oil, stones, water or even spit to do it.

I can keep doing it over and over, and unless I have damaged the edge of the blade on a miserable knot, I don't have to pull out a stone or take a lot of care and time to sharpen. More importantly, I am removing the minimum material from the blade. Best of all, this is easy to learn.

Bob

I think the differences between honing carving tools vs. bench planes and chisels is more than nuanced. There are a whole lot of differences in play. I appreciate the information you've conveyed here but it's not necessarily on point with maintaining the simple geometry involved with bench planes and chisels, and whether stropping those two classes of tools is even necessary when a very fine finishing stone has been acquired and is available for use.

Callan Campbell

01-27-2010, 9:25 AM

Then I suggest you not be haphazard in the application of compound. :D

Let me turn your question around, why buy an $150 finishing stone that is about 1 micron, when you can use an $8 tube of compound that has exactly the same (or slightly better) abrasive properties? If you don't like leather, you can use it on MDF, which for practical purposes is as flat as a plate of glass.

One of the aforementioned WoodNet sharpening fanatics recently wrote me privately that he has close to $5,000 worth of bench stones from the very latest designs from Shapton to quarried Japanese natural stones. Today he uses PA-70 on MDF.
"Very Privately", so that his wife didn't read his post[5K in sharping equipment];););)

Mark Roderick

01-27-2010, 9:39 AM

I doubt it Mark because I think there are other important attributes to a honing stone beyond nominal grit size and I think these attributes apply to your scenario since you are essentially using a strop as a honing stone.

I'm not convinced that a haphazardly charged leather strop won't cut serrations (scratches) into the leading edge of a chisel or plane plane. This is the nasal spray analogy again. A serrated edge doesn't cut all that badly but it breaks down making you go back to the strop over and over again. Contrary to another poster's opinion, I think that will inevitably dub the edge and I frankly don't think it takes to many trips to the strop for this to happen.

My question remains - what do you lacking in your finishing stone causing you to feel the need to continue to abrade metal?
Sandy, the question you posed simply makes no sense in the context of this discussion. I asked you "If you would hone a blade on a .5 micron stone, why wouldn't you hone it on a .5 micron strop?" You respond "Why would you use a strop if you're doing the job correctly with a stone?" Your response is unresponsive.

You are putting the rabbit in the hat, and I'm not sure you even realize you're doing it. You are ASSUMING that honing on a stone and honing on a strop are fundamentally different, and that the stone is always preferable. I am asking you WHY honing on a .5 micron stone is different than honing on a .5 micron strop.

Let's say you've used your 8000 grit stone with perfect technique. For Christmas your wife gave you a 15000 grit stone. Would you use it?

And if you would use it conceptually, but you woke from your dream to learn that your wife did not give you a 15000 grit stone for Christmas (another necktie) why would you not use a .5 micron strop instead, thus improving the edge from your 3 micron stone?

See, it's just hard for me to understand why going from a 3 micron stone to a .5 micron strop doesn't improve the edge.

Jeff Farris

01-27-2010, 10:08 AM

Mark,

You've asked a perfectly valid question that gets to the heart of this discussion, however, according to the Shapton site, 15000 grit = .92 micron. The only thing they offer close to .5 micron is the $500 30000 grit stone at .46 micron.

And people complain about Tormek prices. :eek::D

Sam Takeuchi

01-27-2010, 11:10 AM

I'm sure it cost a lot to develop such stone as their #30000 stone and I think one of the reasons it is very expensive is that majority of bladed tool users of all fields don't need it and they don't make and sell as many as lower grit stones. The highest stone I use is Shapton Pro #12000, and does wonderful job. I'm sure a stone in #30000's range would do something to the steel, but if anyone asked me if it's a must have item, I'd say no. It's in the territory of luxury for me and for many others, too, I assume. Even #12000 isn't a must have stone for the most part, but I like it and I'm happy with that.

Also, if anyone is wondering, all stones produce serrated edge. Just higher grit has less pronounced serration than the lower ones. Check out this PDF (http://www.shapton.co.jp/GlassSeries_2008_07_01_ver1.pdf) from Shapton. It's in Japanese, but doesn't matter. Small rectangle pictures on page 2 and 3 shows microscopic edge (that's a lot higher magnification than well known study done by Brent. Picture covers 0.0039"x0.0059" area). Corresponding grit number and grit size can be found just above each picture.

Sandy Stanford

01-27-2010, 11:24 AM

Sandy, the question you posed simply makes no sense in the context of this discussion. I asked you "If you would hone a blade on a .5 micron stone, why wouldn't you hone it on a .5 micron strop?" You respond "Why would you use a strop if you're doing the job correctly with a stone?" Your response is unresponsive.

You are putting the rabbit in the hat, and I'm not sure you even realize you're doing it. You are ASSUMING that honing on a stone and honing on a strop are fundamentally different, and that the stone is always preferable. I am asking you WHY honing on a .5 micron stone is different than honing on a .5 micron strop.

Let's say you've used your 8000 grit stone with perfect technique. For Christmas your wife gave you a 15000 grit stone. Would you use it?

And if you would use it conceptually, but you woke from your dream to learn that your wife did not give you a 15000 grit stone for Christmas (another necktie) why would you not use a .5 micron strop instead, thus improving the edge from your 3 micron stone?

See, it's just hard for me to understand why going from a 3 micron stone to a .5 micron strop doesn't improve the edge.

We're going to have to agree to disagree since I find your assumption that any surface smeared with a nominally finer grit substance qualifies as a honing stone to be fallacious.

File it under: "Sandy doesn't hone plane blades and chisels on leather"

Perhaps to my disadvantage.

Derek Cohen

01-27-2010, 12:15 PM

An important point about stropping has been overlooked.

Stropping on leather or MDF (to revitalise and edge, that is) is about convenience. Not many woodworkers have a dedicated sharpening area where they have easy access to their stones - which can be a messy affair. It is convenient to hang a strop under the bench, or nearby, and reach for it when the blade begins to dull.

Strops are not a substitute for stones. It is not about the grits available in paste form, or in diamond solutions, or cakes of rouge that may be used on leather or MDF more cheaply than a Shapton 30000. Charles (Sandy on this forum) is correct when he says that a strop will dub an edge where a stone is less likely to do so. But that is how strops work, and as long as they are used for revitalising an edge - which means that their lifespan in this regard has a finite number before returning to a stone - then they perform a valid task in my opinion.

In fact, Charles, using a plain leather strop to remove the wire edge, as you say you do, is likely to do harm since this can dub the edge of the blade.

I said earlier that I strop on either leather or a Shapton 12000 (my finest Shapton). I can do both because I do have a dedicated and accessible sharpening area in my workshop. For the past 12 months I have not needed to rely on a leather stop under the bench. Nevertheless, although I increasingly turn to the Shapton, I still pull out the strop with the green rouge, and it does the job perfectly well for that moment in time. But I think the point made by Charles is valid - a hard, flat surface is preferable to a soft, pliable surface.

The other point about strops is when they become substitutes for stones, such as recommended by Jeff (who sell Tormeks and Tormek paste). The common principle about efficient sharpening is that angles must be reproduced reliably. One of the problems I have with the Tormek leather wheel is that a round motorised strop is not predictable (holding the blade against this rounded face is anything mut predictable). Now Jeff I am not saying that the Tormek wheel is incapable of creating a sharp edge, and I am not criticising the Tormek (I love mine). I am simply saying that a round wheel is less predictable than a flat surface. In the same way that a pliable surface is less predictable than a hard, flat surface in the long run.

The theme of my message is consistent - for me, stropping is about short-term convenience. Others may take a different view (of course they will - there are many, many different ways to a sharp edge). If it works for you, them well and good.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Ray Gardiner

01-27-2010, 12:38 PM

Interesting discussion, everyone has their favourite technique.... I use a tormek and have a number of shaped leather stropping wheels for various carving tools.

Only point I would think should be emphasised with stropping is that a light touch is needed. I also use a buffing wheel with a loose calico buff for a quick touch up, depends a bit on whatever's closer at the time.

I remember at the barbers as a young kid, the barber always stropped his fearsome looking straight razor when giving someone a shave.

Regards
Ray

Sandy Stanford

01-27-2010, 12:51 PM

Jeff Farris

01-27-2010, 1:53 PM

Please forgive me for diverging from the original issue, which was (if I can remember) stropping with compounds versus bench stones, but Derek has brought up an issue that gets to another important consideration, that of manual honing, whether on stones or strops, compared to power honing on a round surface.

Derek, you have called the Tormek honing wheel unpredictable, and leather unpredictable as well. I'm not sure that unpredictable is exactly what you mean. The wheel is going to turn in a circle. It can't turn in anything else. Even if the honing wheel isn't precisely perpendicular to the shaft, and the wheel has run-out, it is still quite predictable. It is going to do exactly the same thing with each revolution. Also, the leather is resilient. It has give, but that give is reliable, it isn't going to change. It is, in my view, quite predictable. You may regard this as a semantic observation, but bear with me for a moment.

What I find unpredictable is the nearly infinite number of possible changes in angle that can happen when all the joints in one's hands, arms, shoulders, torso, hips and legs try to hold a tool precisely on a flat surface and move it fore and aft at the same time. Consider that when honing on the Tormek, one need only control the angle of the tool and let the machine provide the motion (or at least most of it).

I firmly believe that a beginner (or anyone who has struggled with sharpening) can learn the dexterity needed to hold a tool against the Tormek honing wheel correctly far easier than he can learn to accurately and "predictably" use a bench stone. Let's also look at the surface feet per minute that a rotating wheel can put past an edge, compared to what one can do working back and forth (or as some would instruct, working in one direction only). Faster and easier works in my book.

Mark Roderick

01-27-2010, 4:20 PM

Is "Sandy" the inimitable "Charles" from another site?

I have the greatest personal and professional admiration for Charles despite the fact that he is a highly developed curmudgeon by nature.

Sandy Stanford

01-27-2010, 5:50 PM

Is "Sandy" the inimitable "Charles" from another site?

I have the greatest personal and professional admiration for Charles despite the fact that he is a highly developed curmudgeon by nature.

I just found an old Wood is Good composition strop in the bottom of a plastic tub that had been squirreled away in the attic - this along with an old water level and parts to a Lee Valley vise I never installed, there are some pipe clamp saddles, and old CLC set of leather bags, a ramset, and a bunch of other goodies.

The thing appears to be a very hard rubber. I'm going to slap some green crayon on it and see what the hubbub is all about.

Will it outperform the Black Ark?

We shall see.

Ed Nelson978

01-27-2010, 7:44 PM

Ha Ha! You guys are funny! I don't have the few hundred dollars in waterstones, but my arkansas plus a strop sharped my carving tools quite nicely and I only have about $30 tied up in my system. You are probably right that when you go up to an 8000, 900, 10000 waterstone you don't need to strop, but I'd much rather work a little on my $20 stone and a few swipes on the strop and get back to the wood. The wood is after all where it counts!

Derek Cohen

01-28-2010, 7:05 AM

...Derek, you have called the Tormek honing wheel unpredictable, and leather unpredictable as well. I'm not sure that unpredictable is exactly what you mean. The wheel is going to turn in a circle. It can't turn in anything else. Even if the honing wheel isn't precisely perpendicular to the shaft, and the wheel has run-out, it is still quite predictable. It is going to do exactly the same thing with each revolution. Also, the leather is resilient. It has give, but that give is reliable, it isn't going to change. It is, in my view, quite predictable. You may regard this as a semantic observation, but bear with me for a moment.

What I find unpredictable is the nearly infinite number of possible changes in angle that can happen when all the joints in one's hands, arms, shoulders, torso, hips and legs try to hold a tool precisely on a flat surface and move it fore and aft at the same time. Consider that when honing on the Tormek, one need only control the angle of the tool and let the machine provide the motion (or at least most of it).

I firmly believe that a beginner (or anyone who has struggled with sharpening) can learn the dexterity needed to hold a tool against the Tormek honing wheel correctly far easier than he can learn to accurately and "predictably" use a bench stone. Let's also look at the surface feet per minute that a rotating wheel can put past an edge, compared to what one can do working back and forth (or as some would instruct, working in one direction only). Faster and easier works in my book.

Jeff

You are loyal to Tormek. That shows in all your replies.

Understand that I believe that my Tormek is one fine tool, and it makes the work of preparing a sharp edge much, much easier. Nevertheless, I am also firmly of the belief that stropping plane and chisel blades is not one of the areas I consider to be its strength. I have no hesitation in taking my gouges and carving chisels to it, but not typically my plane and bench chisel blades. I have done so enough times to know that it works, and that it can work well, but what I am emphasizing is that the Tormek strop is not a reliable tool for a beginner or even an intermediate user. You and I go around-and-around on this point: I say the Tormek is not a sharpener but a grinder-with-a-strop, although I do accept that some use it as a sharpening system. Jeff, you have to accept that people are permitted to have different views.

What makes the the Tormek strop "unpredictable" is that it is round, and being round this will make it difficult to gauge the angle at which you are stropping the edge (if indeed it is the edge you strop - it is very easy to dub an edge if your technique is off). I would have thought that the tool rest would help here, but you said (in an earlier post in this thread), "On the strop, the use of the jig is in my opinion of questionable value". What you do when someone points to a weakness in the Tormek system is to criticise the opposition ("What I find unpredictable is the nearly infinite number of possible changes in angle that can happen when all the joints in one's hands, arms, shoulders, torso, hips and legs try to hold a tool precisely on a flat surface and move it fore and aft at the same time"). That is not helpful. What would be helpful is exploring what would contribute to predictable stropping.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Jeff Farris

01-28-2010, 9:32 AM

Derek,

Please overlook the fact that I sell Tormek. We go round and round on this issue not because I am trying to sell Tormek, but because I can put a better edge on a tool with a Tormek than I can with bench stones and I firmly believe that a lot of other people can, too. I have never, on any forum anywhere said that manual sharpening on flat abrasive didn't work. I did it successfully for about 15 years before I started working with the Tormek folks. I know that a lot of people who own Tormek finish on bench stones. That's fine, but it is a choice, and one that I feel is only one of a few available choices. One of the other choices is to finish on the leather honing wheel, which in my opinion offers some advantages. Those being, 1) it requires no further investment, 2) It requires only learning how to control the angle relative to the surface, the machine takes care of the movement, 3) It delivers a higher level of polish than almost any available bench stone or abrasive sheet on the market, and it does it economically, 4) It minimizes the overall footprint that sharpening occupies in your shop, and 5) once the technique is learned, it is wicked fast.

How is it "not helpful" to point out that manual honing on stones or a flat strop requires more moving parts in the human body than presenting the tool to the Tormek honing wheel? It is a fact. Yes, it is possible to dub an edge with the honing wheel. Will you please acknowledge that it is also possible to dub an edge and/or alter a bevel angle doing it on stones or a flat strop? Both techniques require that you learn a technique. My opinion is that learning to use the honing wheel is easier than learning to use a bench stone. Your opinion differs, but I think it is clouded by many years of success with stones before you even knew what a Tormek was. I have never, nor would ever question your skill. It is evident in every post you make on many different forums. And, your willingness to teach and share is admirable. But, you need to practice some of the tolerance of differing opinions that you're asking me to give.

Mike Henderson

01-28-2010, 11:59 AM

I'll throw in my two cents worth. I use a power strop for sharpening carving tools, and I feel I'm pretty capable with a power strop. Have done it for years.

But no matter how I try, if I use my power strop on chisels and plane blades, I dub the edge. I find I get a much better edge straight off my water stones with chisels and plane blades.

And I've really tried a number of times to use the power strop on those tools.

I can only guess the reason but I think it has to do with the bevel angle. Carving tools use a very low bevel angle, and even if I sharpened them by hand, I'd get some rounding of the bevel because you just can't hold the tool that flat.

I use a jig with my chisels and plane blades so the angle I set it to is the angle I get. I suppose I could try really reducing the bevel angle of a chisel and see how the power strop finished the edge. My guess is that it would dub the edge somewhat, producing the equivalent of a secondary bevel, but the net effect would be a bevel of 25 to 30 degrees, which would work. I'll have to try that one day.

Mike

Jeff Farris

01-28-2010, 12:05 PM

J.... What would be helpful is exploring what would contribute to predictable stropping.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek,

You asked this a couple weeks ago. I responded. You weren't heard from again on the subject.

See my post #15 in this thread.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=129648

Derek Cohen

01-28-2010, 12:21 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by Derek Cohen
J.... What would be helpful is exploring what would contribute to predictable stropping.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek,

You asked this a couple weeks ago. I responded. You weren't heard from again on the subject.

See my post #15 in this thread.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=129648

Jeff

I do not consider the stropping on the Tomek to be predictable and reliable. To be quite frank, some of your recommendations horrified me, and I remained silent as I did not wish to draw attention to your statements. You now ask me to do so ..

Such as "Rounding over an edge on the leather wheel is very easily corrected, just stop holding the tool at the wrong angle". Yeah, right ... holding it at the right angle is the problem in the first place!

Such as "When polishing the burr off the back of a blade, lay the blade onto the honing wheel well behind the edge -- an inch or so. Put your fingers on the back of the blade just behind the bevel. Hold the tool at an angle such that as you pull the tool back toward yourself, the cutting edge will just kiss the leather at the tangent to the arc". Is this meant to be easy ... reliable?!!!!

I'm off to bed. It's 1:00 a.m. here.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Jeff Farris

01-28-2010, 12:58 PM

Jeff...
Such as "Rounding over an edge on the leather wheel is very easily corrected, just stop holding the tool at the wrong angle". Yeah, right ... holding it at the right angle is the problem in the first place!

That was an attempt at mild humor. Pardon me. I really think you're making this much harder than it is. The point is, no one does something perfectly the first time they do it. It takes practice. If you've dubbed an edge, you presented to tool to the strop at too blunt an angle. If you come closer to working at the tangent of the wheel, you won't dub your edge. Simple as that.

Such as "When polishing the burr off the back of a blade, lay the blade onto the honing wheel well behind the edge -- an inch or so. Put your fingers on the back of the blade just behind the bevel. Hold the tool at an angle such that as you pull the tool back toward yourself, the cutting edge will just kiss the leather at the tangent to the arc". Is this meant to be easy ... reliable?!!!!

Yes, it is easy and reliable. I think it is time to shoot some video showing just how easy and reliable it is.

Bob Strawn

01-28-2010, 1:49 PM

Ben Rivenbark

01-29-2010, 12:02 AM

Hey guys. Interesting conversation going on, and I feel that I have a few things I could add to the subject.

I collect and restore straight razors, as well as shave with them on a daily basis.

Sharpness is very important, but so is smoothness. A sharp and smooth edge shaves much better than just a sharp edge. I have hundreds and hundreds of dollars tied up in natural stones, shaptons going to ridiculously small grits, other waterstones, etc.

I agree with the fact that the wax bars aren't as good as they claim to be; most are manufactured by Formax abrasives (woodcraft green bar, microfine, and many others are made by this company), and if you do enough research you'll find the Materials Safety Data Sheets, which give a material breakdown of the components. Only about 30% of the composition is chromium oxide, and the remainder is mostly a much coarser grained aluminum oxide. A shave after these bars typically leaves much to be desired.

On the other hand, you can find very tightly controlled chromium oxide in powder form where they particles are mostly well into the submicron range. That stuff makes for a wonderfully smooth shave that just wipes away hair like no other.

As to the edge off of a 6000 or 8000 grit stone - it depends on the stone, but some are comfortable enough to shave off of, but most aren't very good. Almost no 6000 grit stones, and few 8000. Going from the 8000 grit to a loaded strop, however, does a lot for the edge. Really makes it much smoother.

Dr. John Vanderhoeven did quite a bit of research on the subject of sharpening, and lucky for us included lots of photos from a scanning electron microscope. A picture is worth a thousand words, at a minimum.

http://www.feine-klingen.de/PDFs/verhoeven1.pdf

So while some people may say that it doesn't make a difference and an 8000 grit stone is all you need, all I can say is that my face can tell a huge difference, my tools can, and so can anyone just by looking at the pictures.

FYI, in the link scroll down for image 25 and 26. Basically before after pics with a 6000 grit edge, then a stropped 6000 grit edge.