To strop or not to strop....

[Mike Cherry]

Hi guys. Couple weeks ago I was having issues sharpening and got some great feedback here and I have stumbled onto another issue.

I recently took delivery of some green honing compound and a leather strop from Tools For Working Wood. The edge that I am able to get is amazing.

My questions are:
How does the "ruler trick" fit into the stropping procedure? I have not tried the ruler trick simply because I like using the strop to remove any burr but I am concerned that I am doing myself a disservice. Should I do the ruler trick on my 8k and just call it a day?

The other question I have is this:

Do you notice longer edge retention when stropping and how soon do you touch up your edge on the strop.

[Daniel Rode]

If your results are amazing, keep doing what you're doing and forget about ruler tricks and such.

The edge that I am able to get is amazing.

[george wilson]

Use the green compound on a piece of CLEAN MDF board. Strop a few times. Don't over do it. The MDF will not round over the edge like leather will. The ruler trick has nothing to do with stropping. Strop on the bevel side only.

Keep your MDF strop put away where shop dust and other particles cannot settle on it and degrade the green polish.

[lowell holmes]

I use the green compound on MDF as George said. It works great like George said.

It is the only use I have for mdf.:)

[Mike Cherry]

Dan - I agree with you 100% Its the thought that maybe I am still missing something that keeps me pursuing a better understanding of sharpening. I am really happy with my blade edges right now.

George and Lowell - Thanks for the MDF tip. I suppose I may need to find a new use for the leather.

How about the edge retention when using honing compound? Do you feel it warrants the added step after the waterstones? If so, how soon do you touch up your edges usually?

[Steve Voigt]

I don't consider green paste on mdf to be stropping. Nothing against it--in fact it works great--but it's really a fine & cheap stone, not a strop.

I like a leather strop with no paste. er, for my tools. :D The strop is really just to knock off any remaining bits of wire edge. If I read correctly, you (Mike) are finishing with an 8000 stone, so look at the edge under magnification when you are done. If you see any little bits of burr clinging to the edge, then stropping will help.

By the way, there is nothing wrong with stropping both sides, as long as you keep the iron flat on the strop and only take a few passes.

I agree with Dan--if you are getting a good edge, no need to complicate it with the ruler trick.

[Jim Matthews]

I was taught to strop at a consistent angle, without "rolling" the steel.

I only strop on one side, the bevel.
The strop removes the wire edge formed when honing.

I don't find stropping sufficient, if the edges have dulled.
When that happens, I go back through the two finest stones,
and strop again.

I use leather glued to a backer board, and press down HARD.
When the iron comes off the strop - it's warm.

[lowell holmes]

I use diamond plates. I have water stones, but I am not enamored with them. My three diamond plates are more expensive than the Norton water stones were.

I don't go bananas sharpening. My fine plate stays out with a water squirt bottle, along with the mdf. I stop occasionally and hand sharpen my tools free hand.

If you just touch them, you will likely bleed. So whether it is a strop or not, it works. I have a leather strop glued to a board and used it until I discovered the mdf.
The green stuff is a compound, not paste.

[Stew Hagerty]

I have a "Horse Butt" strop that I got from T4WW out at Handworks last year.

http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/store/item/MS-HORSEST

(http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/store/item/MS-HORSEST)I put some green compound on the rough side and rubbed a bit of honing oil into the smooth side.

I absolutely love it! I use oil stones (and yes, they work just fine with A2 and O1 steels) and finish with a Hard Black Arkansas. Then I give a couple of swipes on the green side, and a final one or two on the smooth side. When I'm done, the edge is wicked a$$ sharp!

For my chisels, just a quick few passes on each side refreshes the edge and keeps me from running through the stones nearly as often. With my plane blades, since I have to pull them out of the plane I usually do a few swipes on Hard then Black, before stropping. I figure since I have them out anyway, I might as well make them as sharp as possible before putting them back in and running through the adjustments.

My step-father passed away last year. He was an old time Barber. I have two of the old leather strops that hung beside his Barber chairs. I'm actually anxious to give them a try. I'm just finishing up with a major workshop remodel and have several projects backed up and waiting for me to get started on.

OK, I guess I got carried away...

Yes I use and am a proponent of stropping.

[Winton Applegate]

How does the "ruler trick" fit into the stropping procedure?

They are BOTH in exactly the same category.
Completely unnecessary.
I have the green stuff (and the white stuff and the yellow stuff and the clear stuff ((diamond)) and tons of strop surfaces
nah dude, nah

(except David's hard special real strop with nothing on it (get that if you want a strop).

Maybe it isn’t too late to send back the green stuff and the soft leather. Or if you plan on carving save them for sharpening carving chisels.

Keep that stuff far away from your plane blades though.
It is like cheating on a test. You get the paper but you still are lost when it comes down to doing the job.

Do you notice longer edge retention when stropping
No the exact opposite. The edge is sharp but partially rounded so it is effectively half way to dull when it comes to a fixed plane blade. A carving chisel you vary the angle until you get it to cut. I know this is hard to believe but do as many tests as I have and you will discover the truth.

how soon do you touch up your edge on the strop.
Right after Hell freezes over is about right. Wait for that and go for it.

[Winton Applegate]

I agree that a flat block of wood or mdf is an adequate sharpening "thingy".
I see where it can't really be "called" a strop though I would have called it that. Read what David says about the real deal strops DRY and yes the wood isn't a STROP.
It is a kind of stone.
I have very flat maple sharpening "thingys" that I have used with all the various colored stuff. Diamond is great on those. An 8000 stone of high quality is less messing around. Chipping up the green or yellow stuff to get it onto the wood
or
cleaning up the greasy diamond stuff off the blade and having the little tubes of the stuff to squirt out.
I would rather use a clean and flattenable 8000 water stone any day.

and stop there.
use the last few passes on both sides of the blade on the 8000 as your strop. Very light pressure and only short strokes.

The last passes on a strop should be very light pressure as well. All this heavy pressure stuff like oh I can't remember his name right now is counter productive to a plane blade. Sharp but rounded.

This is what I am talking about, see drawings,
at least from heavy pressure this is what is being done to your nice hard won sharpening geometry. Pre wear to the facets even though you can cut arm hair like there was no tomorrow.

Strop one side that is one mistake. Strop both sides that is two mistakes.

IMO

:o

[bridger berdel]

Polishing compound on wood is a strop in my book. It works, too. It does seem to every so slightly round the edges, so if the change of cutting angle matters hone a little lower. I do strop both faces, with the tool held flat tight to the strop.

[Winton Applegate]

Read David's book. There is magic in them there leathers.

[Winton Applegate]

flat tight to the wood with stuff on it should be exactly like using a stone so no prob.
I am talking about the flexible soft leather especially with the rough side up but to some degree even on the finish side of the soft leather.

Nah wood or mdf is good and should not round.

[Mike Cherry]

Lots of helpful info guys thanks!

[Warren Mickley]

Drawings are good if they help us understand what we actually notice. Otherwise they are useless. My chemistry teacher said years ago, "if a model fails to explain the phenomena we observe, we discard the model and make a new one.

So here is Mike reporting good results from stropping with green stuff on leather. And here is Winton with drawings to show Mike that what he noticed did not really happen. Ridiculous.

I have used a clean leather strop for five decades. We strop because it improves performance. We strop on both sides because we can notice the difference. I think the ruler trick would be helpful if you were to have a class of beginners and wanted to get them working right away. Or if you are getting a new plane iron every month and are tired of flattening backs. If you can use the same iron for years at a time, the ruler trick is unnecessary.

[Jim Matthews]

The method that doesn't work for you is unneccesary.

To paraphrase Pancho Gonzales;
"Never change a winning game plan. Always change when you're losing."

[ian maybury]

Only finding my way into this territory, but a few 'so far' observations. As previously the insight that pops out is that stropping is used for very different tasks depending on who you talk to. There's those that seem to hone to about 1,000 grit on whatever stone/abrasive they use, and to do the rest on a strop. Which judging by some of the demo videos can entail using heavy pressure and leaning very heavily on the strop. It seemingly does produce a sharp edge, but begs questions about the more or less inevitable rounding of bevels. Which in turn judging by some reports (presuming the bevel angle at the edge is OK) may depending on methods and situation be much less of an issue than we might necessarily think. (i wouldn't want a heavily (or even lightly) stropped back on a chisel though)

The alternative scenario is the guy who carefully hones his blades on progressively finer and carefully flattened waterstones - finishing both faces on a very fine 1 micron (12,000 grit or thereabouts - or finer) stone. Probably using a honing guide so that the faces comprising the edge are flat and accurately aligned. This is already a very sharp edge.

Stropping and/or buffing does seem to be capable of delivering an improvement in this situation - i'm for example seeing a definite extra with a quick buff of a few seconds on each side using just a white fibre buffing disc on a WorkSharp with no compound of any sort - and doing my best to replicate the final honing angles. For sure though (and as some like Winton have said) hammering an edge like this with high forces on a soft strop seems highly likely to mess with the edge geometry you've just spent so much time to create. It's seems likely however that as David has said before that this extra sharpness probably survives only the first few contacts of the blade with the workpiece anyway - if that.

In this (very fine honing) situation the posts by people like David and George suggest that there's a similar benefit to be had from lightly stropping on MDF or a similar relatively hard surface for a few strokes (i've not tested this yet) - taking care to align with the geometry of whatever edge you have just put on. This is a very different process to the first - even though both are nominally 'stropping'.

All of these approaches seem very capable of delivering an edge that's sharp enough to handle most jobs - although there seem likely to be differences in how the tool performs which may or may not matter depending on working style. Convenience/practicality is a factor too. Waterstones using the Charlesworth approach or similar reliably produce sharp and accurately formed edge time and again with minimal scope for screw ups. A significant benefit many report with stropping is its usefulness as a means of quickly and by hand/without the need to set up honing guides/with no waterstone mess refreshing a slightly dulled blade.

My sense is that there's no pat answer to the question - that as many have said it's ultimtely a case of finding a method that suits your need and style, and working the bugs out of it until you are happy...

One related issue for me is the matter of how best to handle the stropping of micro bevels already worked up on fine waterstones or the like. (and i can't see how stropping the back side of a ruler tricked plane/ (not chisel) blade is much different to stropping the micro bevel on the other side) My instinct given the very small surface areas is to go lightly and for only a few seconds, and to take care to preserve the final honing angles (but feedback appreciated) - on the basis that this light stropping/buffing will likely strip off any debris amost at first touch, and that beyond that the risk of damage/dubbing rapidly increases.

Another is the use/non use of honing compounds. They all seem to contain grits much larger than the 1 micron or less of a very fine waterstone - yet they seem to deliver results. It's a very different working situation though compared to grits embedded in a waterstone, and the particles may anyway not be quite so hard and roll rather than cut...

[Pat Barry]

Drawings are good if they help us understand what we actually notice. Otherwise they are useless. My chemistry teacher said years ago, "if a model fails to explain the phenomena we observe, we discard the model and make a new one.

So here is Mike reporting good results from stropping with green stuff on leather. And here is Winton with drawings to show Mike that what he noticed did not really happen. Ridiculous.

I have used a clean leather strop for five decades. The guy who taught me was born in 1894 and the guy who taught him was born in 1828. We strop because it improves performance. We strop on both sides because we can notice the difference. I think the ruler trick would be helpful if you were to have a class of beginners and wanted to get them working right away. Or if you are getting a new plane iron every month and are tired of flattening backs. If you can use the same iron for years at a time, the ruler trick is unnecessary.

I think Winton's drawings, coupled with his explanation, do get the point (or lack of one on the resulting edge) across so I don't think we should be dismissive of that. In fact he doesn't strop and gets results he is happy with, and you do because thats the way you were taught and you get results you are happy with. Therefore the model fits, for each of you, and there is no need to discard either one. That leaves to each his own. Now for a beginner, I think hearing multiple options are important so that we can have a variety of approaches, all of which can work. I have no doubt in my mind that there are inherent technique intricacies that each of you use by habit that are so engrained that you can't explain them - things you learned through practice and do without thinking now. Those are the keys to success. Those are the things that each of us needs to learn for ourselves.

[Derek Cohen]

I have two leather strops hanging next to my bench. Both are hard horse butt from TFWW. Both are glued to a length of hardwood, smooth side up. One is plain leather and the other is covered with green compound (0.5 micron).

The plain leather strop is used after honing a blade, to remove any vestiges of wire. The green compound is used to refresh an edge that is dulling, and mainly used with chisels.

I do not consider the leather with compound to be technically a strop. It is really a sharpening leather.

About the ruler trick and sharpening: in a word, difficult. As I mentioned in another thread, the only time I use the ruler trick is with BU plane blades, and there it is to remove the wear bevel. It is only in recent years that I began doing so (so this is not a beginners technique on my part). For years I had sharpened BU blades without a ruler trick, and then would refresh a blade by "stropping" the back (with the green compound). It is difficult to strop a secondary micro bevel, which is used on the face as the likelihood is that one will dub/alter the angle. This is important on BU blades. Compensating for the now non-stropping is the new longer-lasting PM steel.

For those interested, there is a comparison of Stropping with green compound versus diamond paste

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/WoodworkTechniques/Stroppingwithgreenrougeversesdiamondpaste.html

Regards from Perth

Derek

[george wilson]

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

So,are you guys wanting to cut wood,or try your edge on a prisoner? :)

So,as usual,everyone has an opinion,and I don't see how the OP has been able to learn anything. Only confusion. I don't have much time here,but I'll quickly say that to strop or not depends on how fine a stone you are putting your final edge on. I just use a white ceramic,which is not 12,000 grit. So.I give a few light passes on my MDF board. More details later.

Edit: I think how fine a stone you are using actually says it all. I have been stropping my edges since the 50's,and have been able to do the work I have done with the edges gotten from it.

But,as I have said many times, DISCRETION is really the most important factor in just about any endeavor. Don't over do it. The rest of the magic is learning to develop carisma(sp?) with materials-funny as that sounds. Learn how to coax your materials into doing what you want them to do. Some people are going to be able to develop this,and others will not.

[David Weaver]

Derek - your conclusion holds for razors also. The veritas compound (or more specifically, the microfine formax compound) is mostly aluminum oxide, but does a reasonable job on the edge, a little less fine than a true chromium oxide paste, but faster cutting than those all chrome ox pastes, too.

Silicon carbide and diamonds both leave ragged edges, and you have to go very fine to get a really smooth edge from them if ultimate sharpness and polish are desired. There are razor users who go to 0.25 micron diamonds and then to 0.5 micron (pure) chromium oxide because the chrome-ox is less ragged and harsh, even when the particle size is double.

All of that stuff is on the outer perimeter of anything *needed* for woodworking, but if someone wants to go all out....

[David Weaver]

But,as I have said many times, DISCRETION is really the most important factor in just about any endeavor. Don't over do it. The rest of the magic is learning to develop carisma(sp?) with materials-funny as that sounds. Learn how to coax your materials into doing what you want them to do. Some people are going to be able to develop this,and others will not.

I agree. I have used all of these compounds, but the real treat is in getting a piece of natural stone (or anything else) and figuring out how to lessen the spread of stuff and really get something out of it. I haven't used a compound on a razor that I shave with in quite some time, but instead various natural stones. The washitas clearly don't make an edge as sharp as an edge treated with compound, and maybe not quite as good as a well used hard arkansas, but the thrill with them is that you can get an awfully good edge if you learn what to get from them and then work instead from the "everything is sharpened to the compound" to seeing whether or not you really need it. And you get to see how different things react - for example, white II steel in a japanese chisel will get awfully sharp on a washita stone, because it's right at the edge of what the stone will cut. Same with razors, get one that's a little hard (but not too hard to hold its edge) and you can get a surprisingly fantastic shave off of a coticule that otherwise seems too coarse to do anything comfortably.

Long time ago, mel fulks said on here that poor steel created the need for super fine sharpening stones, or something to that effect, and I disagreed at the time, because the poor steels and fantastic sharpening stones do work well together. But, I agree now that there is something more desirable about those older tools with the dry feeling steels, and to me at least, something more desirable about using them with a stone that's a little more flexible. The results on the wood look the same, but the process is nicer to be a part of.

[george wilson]

I'm still using my old 1960's Marples chisels. I'm sure they aren't made of super steel!! More likely 01. Nothing fancy. I can get them as sharp as they need to be to leave polished cuts in ebony,boxwood,Cuban mahogany-whatever.

I stropped them for years on a leather strop with Simichrome on it. The more worn out the Simichrome got,the better. Now,I use the MDF with Veritas green compound.

What you want to do is change angles as you strop. It causes the microscopic "mountains" to be leveled off as you strop at various angles.

[ian maybury]

I'd forgotten about your piece on stropping Derek - it confirms the view that there's not going to be much difference between honing on a very fine waterstone and good stropping technique on a hard surface in terms of the edge delivered - meaning that choice of method has got to be a lot about subtler considerations/preferences what suits your working style.

Also that stropping over a micro bevel is (not surprisingly) potentially problematical given the risk of losing control of the geometry, and that it's better to strop a flat back on a hard flat so to speak. That said my guess is that there's some stropping over micro bevels, and presumably making that work too.

The biggest risk with stropping the flat backs of blades that i can see is that it likely must (unless the right hard (did I mention hard?)) strop and technique is used bring with it some risk of forming a bevel of some sort. Which may not be a significant issue on a plane blade, but is much more likely to be on chisels.

It has to be presumed too that what's perfectly acceptable for one person (given their work, style, knowledge and preferences) may not be for another.

:) The devil as ever is definitely in the detail - some of which as Pat even those getting good results are not even aware of...

[Jim Koepke]

I agree with you 100% Its the thought that maybe I am still missing something that keeps me pursuing a better understanding of sharpening. I am really happy with my blade edges right now.

If you are happy with what you have you should stay with it until a good reason comes along to try something else.

My blades seemed to perform quite well after honing on a 4000 grit stone. Then an 8000 grit stone was given a try. It is easy to see how a finer stone can render a sharper edge. The question is, for my needs is a minutely sharper blade really needed?

As for stropping my feeling is it gives a slight improvement to an edge just finished on an 8000 grit stone.

As others have said over stropping can ruin an edge.

To really see for your self take the time to sharpen a blade and test it with the method(s) you usually use to test sharpness. Then sharpen again only this time try finishing the blade on the strop. You may or may not see a difference.

And then I went back to look at the original post:


Hi guys. Couple weeks ago I was having issues sharpening and got some great feedback here and I have stumbled onto another issue.

I recently took delivery of some green honing compound and a leather strop from Tools For Working Wood. The edge that I am able to get is amazing.

My questions are:
How does the "ruler trick" fit into the stropping procedure? I have not tried the ruler trick simply because I like using the strop to remove any burr but I am concerned that I am doing myself a disservice. Should I do the ruler trick on my 8k and just call it a day?

The other question I have is this:

Do you notice longer edge retention when stropping and how soon do you touch up your edge on the strop.

The ruler trick is not for everyone. It is not a good practice for chisels. If you have a decent back on a plane blade it isn't needed.

Again, it is one of those things to put to your own testing to see if it is for you.

There are a lot of ways and theories on ways to make a sharp edge. My preferred method is what is simplest for my needs. Keeping it simple means there is seldom a purposely made secondary bevel. Sharpening freehand it is difficult to create a good secondary bevel though it is possible to create an unintended secondary bevel.

It is simpler for me to get a back flat than to use the ruler trick to make a small area ready to go.

Just my 296165, and as always, 296166.

jtk

[steven c newman]

Ok, I had an old leather work belt for the strop, coated with the green stuff.....Meh.

On chisels, 2500 wet & dry on a tile does enough for me. In use, I will swipe the chisel on my jeans as I go along. Once on the back, then once on the bevel, then back to work.

Plane irons, again just to 2.5K Never have tried the Ruler Trick. Moving away from the oil stone, as it has "issues". Sandpaper on a flat floor tile, from 150 trough 2.5K. seems to work for what I do. I get a mirror on the back, and on the bevel. Sharp enough to get a good manicure, too. Haven't tried to shave the face, ....yet. Not sure what soap to use for that...

[Adam Cruea]

I have the Veritas leather strop that's mounted to a hunk of maple hanging above my sharpening "station". One side has green stuff, the other side doesn't.

With anecdotal evidence, I feel the non-green side helps to get a sharper edge. *shrug*

Do whatever floats your boat and severs your wood fibers. :)

[george wilson]

When I was a kid with no money,I have mentioned that I used to strop my chisels on a piece of paper. Paper is a bit abrasive and with enough stropping,you can get a very sharp edge with it. Even off of the cheap,gray hardware stone I had at the time.

I often strop my pocket knife on the inside of the tongue of my wide leather belt,when in my recliner at ease. It is already very sharp,and if I use it for anything,I'll touch it up with the belt since it's handy.

I have mentioned that the more I let the Simichrome get worn out,the better an edge I could get.

So,yes,a plain piece of leather will make a very sharp edge. It just does it more slowly. Some well worn,fine abrasive like the green compound will do it more quickly. Or,finish up on a strop with no compound.

[Noah Wagener]

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

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

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

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

[Sean Hughto]

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

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4o8TeqKhgY&list=RDO4o8TeqKhgY#t=0

[Chris Fournier]

Well Sean really said it all and eloquently at that.

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

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

[David Weaver]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[george wilson]

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

[David Weaver]

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

(that's true!)

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

[Winton Applegate]

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

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

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

[David Weaver]

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

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

[Winton Applegate]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I keep coming back to this knife. (http://www.amazon.com/Victorinox-Swiss-Bantam-Pocket-Knife/dp/B0007QCO4M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409977726&sr=8-1&keywords=swiss+army+bantam)
I had twenty years ago written off Swiss Army knives because they didn’t “hold an edge” long for me. I was wrong. I needed to learn more about edge geometry.
I was using the stock edge which was a pretty obtuse angle. I now sharpen at a very shallow angle ON THIS POCKET KNIFE and the edge lasts and lasts FOR CUTTING THESE plastics and card board items etc., until I cut into grit or hit a staple.

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

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

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

PS:
David,

Finding photos.

The photo was taken by M.D. WHITE (near as I can tell).
Was this the plane someone mentioned seeing
Small plane for big hands ? I was going to ask but then from reading decided it must be.

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

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

[Winton Applegate]

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

NICE PINK BOOTS !

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

[ian maybury]

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

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

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

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

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

[david charlesworth]

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

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

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

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

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

best wishes,
David

[Graham Haydon]

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

[David Weaver]

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

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

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

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

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

best wishes,
David

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

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

[george wilson]

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

[Jim Matthews]

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

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

Like a Rayon necktie, frinstans.

[Steve Voigt]

Please don’t limit me because you haven’t been outside the bowl.


Winton, I don't think anyone is limiting you by pointing out that stropping can work. You might be limiting yourself by insisting it doesn't.



PS: I would love to see some examples (photos) of the superior or at lest comparable results from the strop meisters. And comments on longevity of the stroppies on the difficult stuff…

I wasn't sure if you were asking for pictures of planing results, but I'll assume so. Here are a couple pics I posted recently.

296212 296213

The wood is Ipe. I sharpened with two oilstones and a strop. I hope you'll agree the results are at least comparable to the bubinga you posted the other day (which, I hasten to add, is really really excellent). And not that it's a competition, but the Ipe is significantly harder and more abrasive.

Regarding longevity on "the difficult stuff", I can't really comment because I mostly use domestic hardwoods, so white oak & hard maple are the nastiest things I work on any regular basis. However, take a look at the first photo above. See the three elm boards behind the plane? There were actually 12 of those. They started at a fat 2 & 1/16, and I flattened and then thicknessed to a skinny 1 & 5/8. So, removing almost 1/2" from each board with a fore plane, a try plane set up for moderately heavy cuts, and a jointer set for fine finishing cuts. Vintage high carbon steel in two of the blades, O1 in the other. Here's a shot of the waste product, halfway through the process :)

296215

I was getting through one and a half boards before having to hone again. Now, I don't know if that compares favorably to harder steels. But I'm pretty sure that it takes me less time to do a freehand hone on two stones followed by a quick strop, than it does to use 5 stones and a jig on A2. So it all comes out in the wash. Longevity isn't really an issue. So, strop or don't. It doesn't matter, but it all works.

[george wilson]

Yes,linen was used on one side of a razor strop.

[bridger berdel]

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

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

Like a Rayon necktie, frinstans.

Seatbelt nylon webbing. A few people really like it. The more common response- meh.

[David Weaver]

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

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

Like a Rayon necktie, frinstans.

it's linen, but it's more like a canvas linen material. there is nothing better for maintenance of a razor (in terms of spacing out the time between honing) than the linen once per week (or whatever is deemed necessary) and horse leather every time you shave. I think one could use the same razor for a year. I've used a razor on a linen and leather combination for 6 months, and only stopped to hone because someone sent me a stone to evaluate.

Like many, most common modern strops are not so great, even some that are quite expensive. Many are pig or cow leather and the linen has been replaced by either a heavy canvas, no linen at all, a piece of suede leather, or a piece of cotton felt. None works nearly as well, and they work so poorly that you'd probably say they just don't work.

The linen serves a second purpose, which is after a razor is honed, the linen takes up any tiny bits of dirt that are left on it so that the leather stays uncontaminated. Completely different than the shop.

It takes a year or two of use of different things to figure out that the quality razors and strops were horse leather and some type of genuine linen (of the coarser persuasion, though the coarseness doesn't mean there's any abrasion or beating up of the edge).

"silk finish" vintage linens, and stuff on red imp or certifyd strops are usually the ideal type, treated with something that stiffens them a little bit. Over time, they will burnish an edge to a super bright polish with no harshness. The modern "linens" that aren't linen just don't do much good other than keep dirt away from the strop.

[ian maybury]

Hopefully this is all proving to be of some use to Mike C who posted originally.

Based on limited exposure so far the handling of wire edges seems to be an important part of the game. It'd be great to hear some views...

It seems clear that steel with a higher alloy content, or grinding a bevel on coarser grit really tend to promote their formation. Especially if steepening the bevel, and hence unavoidably grinding through the edge. The stock chrome vanadium of volume market chisels on an 80 grit disc for example results in the equivalent of an old carpet hanging from the edge - while it's relatively tiny on Japanese white steel on even a coarse 120 grit waterstone. A2 while pretty clean still seems to produce noticeably more of a wire edge than 01, and both a little bit more than the white steel.

I'm not sure what the reality is, but my suspicion is provisionally that tearing off (especially a heavy wire edge, but probably also the finer varieties too) isn't a good thing. Because it will likely take a chunk out of your edge as it departs - which unless fully honed out may remain as a nick. I seem to be doing better by gently working through finer waterstones - taking plenty of time especially on the 1,000 grit first stone after grinding to thin it as far as possible. Hard to know exactly what happens as this is going on, but it seems to get much shorter on the first, and to steadily reduce and disappear by the 12,000. (maybe each stone creates it's own wire edge?) There's perhaps an argument when cambering for similar reasons to go most of the way to a polished straight edge before dropping back to 1,000 to put the camber on...

I've no idea what's going on by the 12,000. There's no visible wire edge (maybe under a magnifier?), but on the other hand i seem to be finding as before that a light polish on a white fibre buffing disc definitely brings the (already sharp) edge up a bit more. Judged by my (well trained) thumb which i suppose might not be all that accurate either but which does seem to correlate with how blades perform.

Wonder if the 12,000 grit is in effect stropping the faces, or if a strop introduces some distinctly different metal conditioning and/or removal process? Might light stropping at this stage for example be more about polishing/smoothing the faces than cutting with grits per se? (the superfinishing topic we had going before) Maybe different stropping materials function differently too???

ian

[Winton Applegate]

It took me a while to find but this (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?205548-Plain-Stropping-Looking-for-Advice&p=2132880#post2132880) is what I was thinking of as far as stop info and it turned out to be David Barnett. David W. said he defers to David B. when things start to get weird. So there you go.

[Winton Applegate]

Steve V.,

pictures of planing results, but I'll assume so. Here are a couple pics I posted recently.

Bless you !

I was getting sick of looking at my same boring old photos.
I really enjoy seeing other peoples benches and processes and work shops.

So, removing almost 1/2" from each board with a fore plane, etc.

I am assuming you do not bandsaw. All hand tool work then ? That is A LOT OF WORK. I am going to be sure not to try to arm wrestle with you.

I would have panicked and gone all modern and band sawed off most of that waste.

I have glanced at Ip’e while learning our craft. I don’t have much info on it. Mostly an article I cut out of FWW by Jon Arno God rest his sole.
I went back and reread that article and looked around on line.
YES SIR !
Looks like you have given me examples of what I asked for.
Impressive. You have given me an education.
That is what I come here to Sawmill for even though I do more than my share of yapping.

From what I read I am afeered for your health breathing this stuff. Can even cause vision problems apparently. Sounds like you are done with ip’e for a while; going back to the maple and oak.

A side note for any one else posting miracle photos . . . a “raking” light (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raking_light)across the surface (light source low and possibly back lit) is preferable for viewing for imperfections.

also see this (http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/enhancing_bumps_through_rake_lighting/enhancing_bumps_through_rake_lighting.htm)

The on line info on wood seems to be a bit suspect. For instance this (http://www.wood-database.com/lumber-identification/hardwoods/bubinga/) source for my bubinga lists the wood as not endangered :


This wood species is not listed in the CITES Appendices or on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
and yet I have seen other sources say it is highly endangered. Larry Williams told me directly that bubinga is endangered and he would have nothing to do with the evil stuff.
Obviously your ip’e is a better choice, harder and not endangered, than my bubinga.
Still . . . I can’t fully put this to bed ( in my mind) until I get some ip’e and get out my strops and see for my self how it all is.

vintage high carbon and O1, two stones and a strop with no jig.
MADNESS I tell you. Madness.
Don’t tell me they are Ark stones or else I shall have to head for my fainting couch.

vintage high carbon and O1, two stones and a strop with no jig.
vintage high carbon and O1, two stones and a strop with no jig.

picture in your mind's eye I am walking off into the sun set :

mutter, mutter, mutter STROP ! mutter, mutter, mutter NO JIG !
mutter, mutter, mutter

Nah . . .

[Kees Heiden]

Bubinga, that reminds me. Have you seen the video from the Swiss planemakers Raggenbas, back in the seventies? The link has been floating around the internet for quite some time. They speak French and I don't understand much either, but it is nice to watch.

http://www.rts.ch/archives/tv/culture/suisse-au-fil-du-temps/3464421-les-outils-de-bois.html

They used a laminated block of wood to make their planes, the sole was bubinga.
Starting at 10:32 he sharpens a blade. Wonderfull to see his easy movements on the stone. I don't see a strop though. But it isn't necessarily a complete overview of the work, just an impression.

[george wilson]

If bubinga is endangered,don't you think it is about high time they stopped selling it at Woodcraft?

[David Weaver]

I don't think I've heard that before (bubinga ) but can understand why Larry wouldn't like to make planes.

[ian maybury]

Thanks Winton, and David B too - that's the great granddaddy of a discussion (linked) on the specifics of the form of horse butt leather that makes the best strops. The Raggenbas video is great too. So atmospheric - quite apart from the planes they were formative years for me so it feels like 'home'. The cars are the sort i cut my teeth on - i had a string of Fiat 127s in the early 70s like the one parked slightly to the LHS outside their building at the start of the video.

[Kees Heiden]

Fiat 127, then you must have been familiar with the rust phenomen :D.

[ian maybury]

3 years from new and they usually had rust showing Kees. It didn't help that Fiat Ireland would often leave them for months in a park at the ferryport so they got well salted by the sea.

I did custom painting of motorcycles (in a small way), and didn't too much mind welding in bits of sheet metal and repainting. I had four and ended up with the late 1050cc sport model with a twin choke Weber carb - it revved and went like mad. (small and light car, reasonable power)

The wheel bearings and cam chain normally started to make noise at about 25,000 miles and needed changing soon after, and it was important to use distilled water with the right additive or the rad blocked and the engine overheated (and usually warped the cylinder head) - but other than that they were mechanically rock solid if minded.

Fairly typically Italian - got the basics right, but couldn't be bothered with the details. They had a huge slice of the market here, but it evaporated overnight when the Japanese sorted out their own rust problem and it wasn't acceptable any more. (remember the early Datsuns?)

[Kees Heiden]

So, now we have completely gone off topic. Our neighbour back when I was living with my parents allways had Fiats. He was the mechanics teacher in college and knew a lot about cars, he liked them. I have allways been a fan of these miniature fiats, the 500, the 600 and the 850, but never owned one. We had a lada for a while, a Russian copy of the 127. But that one was truly bad, we had to pull it of the road after only 60.000 km.

[Winton Applegate]

David,

I don't think I've heard that before (bubinga ) but can understand why Larry wouldn't like to make planes.

even though, apparently you had a typing fart there, I think I get what you meant to type. Nah he wasn't saying he was or wasn't going to use it to make planes. He was telling me I had no business using it or trying to plane it in the first place and so I should shut up and work with some real wood like walnut. But that if I wanted A REAL PLANE then I should try a steep bedded woody and quit banging on about bevel up planes which were just pie in the sky marketing gimmicks for sissy suckers like me.

He was partly correct. Maybe mostly correct. I didn't even know who the hell he was back then
but
I knew right off that I had run up against some body just as cranky and crazy as I am.

A delight and a terror at the same time.
Swords were drawn
things got ugly
pieces were flying all over the place.

awe :rolleyes: I miss those days . . .
I eventually deciphered who the heck I was talking to. Much, much, much later I was able to obtain one of his wonderful planes.

I like the guy and his planes !
but then . . . I always say :
If you were leaving on vacation with your camper trailer and you had to go in to have a major brake problem solved on your truck would you rather have the sweetness and light guy who barely understands his job do it
or
would you rather battle your way to the old cranky bastard in the back who doesn't have time to talk to you who
REALLY UNDERSTANDS how to fix your brakes do it?

Rarely do you get both in the same package.

[Winton Applegate]

Raggenbas video

Sorry, Queenmasteroftheuniverseandbabybunnytrainer needed me and I didn’t get chance to watch the Video until now.


Fiat
My industrial engineer mentor that I worked along side for fifteen years, John, he had one and said it was always fun driving his here in Colorado because invariably a big O’ American V8 some such would blow by him on the straights at low elevation as if he were the non-patriotic scum of the earth . . .
later on as the big belcher was gasping for air and petering out up near the top of the pass he would blow by them through the hair pins as if to say “Sorry, I didn’t hear what you said way back there . . . come agin ?”.



Fairly typically Italian
An acquaintance I talk to regularly here works on Ferraris a lot. Yah it is hard to feel sorry for him but I try. I stop in and he walks around from a Dino or Testarossa and I say “ How’s it going; are you hanging in there “? He knows I am being sarcastic and mean the red thing on the lift next to him. In his typical unhurried way of talking he looks beleaguered and hang dog and says “Well if I were going to be stranded on a desert island I would take one of these with me . . . I would at least always have something to do”.

[Winton Applegate]

Kees,


Raggenbas video

Hey thanks for putting that up !
I am enjoying it. The heavy more durable bottom, lighter and cheeper top is a good solution all around.
Makes me want to learn French again.

Sorry, Queenmasteroftheuniverseandbabybunnytrainer needed me and I didn’t get a chance to watch the whole Video yet.

Sharpening and no strop
Yah he just holds the blade way back (so he doesn’t burn his fingers) and grinds the heck out of it then slaps her on that swoopy aced stone to throw off the newbies who are watching. When the camera isn’t rolling he gets his brother to sharpen for him on the flat water stones hidden in the back. Secrets of the trade and all that.

LN must have had him preparing their blade backs back in the day. That explains a lot.

Interesting how the sway backed stone has kind of a ruler trick thing going as far as supporting the blade back a couple inches from the edge, abrading just the edge without hitting the metal in between. That could actually work. Still kind of roundy making though

As far as effortless free handing, and at light speed by the way be sure to watch Frank Klausz sharpen a plane blade (or was it a wide chisel) on his Hand Tools video. I don’t own it but borrowed it from my local WoodCraft that rents videos. Franks stone looks flat though so there must be more than one way to sharpen.
:p

[David Weaver]

David,


even though, apparently you had a typing fart there, I think I get what you meant to type.

Yeah, cursed responsibility that comes along with typing on a phone. I meant to say that I can imagine why larry wouldn't like to make bubinga planes out of it. Floats don't really work well in the long term on that kind of stuff. A blunt edged chisel works better, but you don't always have the option to work it at a good angle on anything other than a bed.

I don't know larry that well, as far as shooting a few barbs and telling you to use a real plane and not use the exotics...

... I'll put my money on george and warren if there is any disagreement, so if you like those bevel up planes, and you like bubinga, keep using them.

I recall once larry mentioned toxic grinding of exotic alloy steels (when bill tindall and I - not in coordination with each other - were on a bender with different exotic alloys - yeah, I used to be into that), and I've never seen anything about it anywhere else, either (because the alloys are stable and chromium doesn't just free itself and turn into cancer balls in the lungs). I still grind those "toxic" steels sometimes. As I sit here, I read an MSDS for HSS that states clearly that the risk of grinding HSS and huffing the dust is pneumoconiosis (if you can imagine actually breathing that much dust - that's the coal miner's disease of black lung for the uninitiated), and this is for an alloy that has everything except the kitchen sink.

We all like to be right, I guess.

[george wilson]

I have breathed too much of everything over the years. Which is why I have COPD pretty bad these days. I now can afford vacuum systems separately for metal and wood dust.

Cobalt bearing HSS is not good to breathe. Most HSS does not contain cobalt due to its expense these days.When I was a kid,I noticed it commonly on drill bits. Not now,unless you pay a LOT more.

[David Weaver]

I'd imagine the biggest danger from steel dust over the long term will be oxidizing dust, or the quantity of the dust in general.

As a hobbyist, I feel pretty safe grinding just about everything except silica based stones and some of the toxic bronzes (isn't there a beryllium or bromate bronze or something that's carcinogenic?)

[Winton Applegate]

toxic grinding of exotic alloy steels
Uuuuuuaaaahhhh . . . where do I start ?

To the newbies reading this:


You don’t have to breath metal hardly at all; dust or vaporized.
You don’t have to get things in your eyes all the time or get hit in the face by flying chunks coming off your power tools.
You don’t have to have your eyes burning all week from arc welding rays .

and get this . . .


You don’t have to breath spray painting fumes that are so toxic they not only make you throw up violently after you paint your car but shorten you life span. = two part epoxy paint.


Tada (see photos).

We just use “Magic”. To get the magic I go into the “Tool Crib” (laundry room) and open up the metal cabinet or rummage around in one of the plastic tubs.

To get your own magic you can find it at the local magic shop cleverly disguised as “A Safety Equipment Supply Store” what ever that means.

Sorry . . . it drives me right up the wall when people electric arc weld with sunglasses and then spend my lunch hour telling me how much their eyes hurt and what the doctor said and how he doesn’t know “nuuuuthin’”.

and they call me "crazy".

Or their friends brag about how he sprays a car and doesn’t use no stupid mask he just goes out back and throws up and that’s all good then.

:confused: What ? Why ?

By the way the thin pancake filters go on the double filter mask and they are designed to fit under the welding helmet.

PS: the lens in the welding helmet is pretty cool. It is gold plated and that allows the welder to be able to see true colors so they can judge when the tungsten electrode gets contaminated (there is a green halo that comes off it) normal welding lenses are already green so one can't see true colors through them. Only a couple of bucks more for gold plated.

[Winton Applegate]

silica

At the fine art bronze foundry I worked at, as I mentioned in other threads, I spent all day nearly every day forming ceramic shell castings to pour molten bronze into to make parts of the sculpture (then those parts were TIG welded together to form huge sculptures).

The ceramic shells were made from silica. I started with dust so fine it could easily reproduce finger prints from the workers left on the wax castings used to build the shells around. (Lost wax process) The silica was adhered to the wax using a milk like slurry then the silica was dusted on to the wet surface. Layer after layer after layer progressively coarser every day until I was dumping rocks over the shells to add strength. Bronze is heavy and really hits those castings.

Yah so I know what it is like to wear this equipment all day long. Dusty dambed life shortening job let me tell you. I was fortunate when I lost my job there. I might live longer because of loosing it.

[Kees Heiden]

Kees,



Hey thanks for putting that up !
I am enjoying it. The heavy more durable bottom, lighter and cheeper top is a good solution all around.
Makes me want to learn French again.

Sorry, Queenmasteroftheuniverseandbabybunnytrainer needed me and I didn’t get a chance to watch the whole Video yet.

Yah he just holds the blade way back (so he doesn’t burn his fingers) and grinds the heck out of it then slaps her on that swoopy aced stone to throw off the newbies who are watching. When the camera isn’t rolling he gets his brother to sharpen for him on the flat water stones hidden in the back. Secrets of the trade and all that.

LN must have had him preparing their blade backs back in the day. That explains a lot.

Interesting how the sway backed stone has kind of a ruler trick thing going as far as supporting the blade back a couple inches from the edge, abrading just the edge without hitting the metal in between. That could actually work. Still kind of roundy making though

As far as effortless free handing, and at light speed by the way be sure to watch Frank Klausz sharpen a plane blade (or was it a wide chisel) on his Hand Tools video. I don’t own it but borrowed it from my local WoodCraft that rents videos. Franks stone looks flat though so there must be more than one way to sharpen.
:p

Well, of course the video wasn't made to settle our sharpening discussions once and for all. It's just an impression of the good old days. Still, that's the kind of oilstone they used back then complete with dish and all that. And they didn't seem to be into fine polishing, or flat backs, or doing a whole bunch of back flattening. Somehow they got along and I often wonder: How?

I'm sure his father (not his brother!) had teached him all there was to know about sharpening a long time ago.

[george wilson]

Stay entirely away from beryllium!!!!!! I have a beryllium wrecking bar (1/2 of one) that was used in a non sparking application somewhere. Someone sawed it in half. I got it when I was young and more ignorant. I always meant to make something out of it,but fortunately never did!! And,now I know better. That stuff will kill you. But,there are alloys that are o.k.(copper beryllium)(said that in reverse). I don't know a lot about them anyway,and just avoid the whole lot.

[Steve Voigt]

Stay entirely away from beryllium!!!!!! I have a beryllium wrecking bar (1/2 of one) that was used in a non sparking application somewhere. Someone sawed it in half. I got it when I was young and more ignorant. I always meant to make something out of it,but fortunately never did!! And,now I know better. That stuff will kill you. But,there are alloys that are o.k.(copper beryllium)(said that in reverse). I don't know a lot about them anyway,and just avoid the whole lot.

Yeah, in the machine shop we were required to wear a respirator and cover all exposed skin when machining beryllium copper. That and Kevlar make a yummy cancer cocktail.

Grinding is no joke. In the old days, the guys who earned a living grinding tools were dead by their 30s or 40s. The stuff that comes off a dry grinder is orders of magnitude worse than a table saw, planer, etc. Some kind of dust collection or a dust mask is always a good idea.

[Kees Heiden]

Ian, you should empty your message box! PM's don't come through anymore.

[Noah Wagener]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

wow. this is great. i need to learn how to convert things to a pdf.

I am looking for a vegan strop. Sounds like i might get away with it for tools but not shaving? Do you have any recommendations? Denim, canvas? Glued to a board like the leather? There is a guy Murray Carter who puts a single piece of newspaper on a damp stone.

I have not shaved in 10 years because of the irritation with safety razors. Always wanted to try a straight. I got one off ebay and really could only shave my cheeks and neck after the Shapton 15K, no strop. The goatee area is very uncomfortable. I was sharpening the same as tools though except that i tried the stone dry. It never real gets like a true mirror. The reflection is super clear but there are easily visible scratches that i am pretty sure are not from a coarser, earlier used stone. Is there a vegan alternative to horse hide?

[Jim Koepke]

Is there a vegan alternative to horse hide?

Are those little Nogas vegan? Not sure if their hides will stand up to stropping.

jtk

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I must be slow.... I had to read that a few times to understand what you were asking. My first thought was that you wanted leather from a "vegan animal" but that made no sense to me. I assume that taking your strop from a meat eating animal does not count (even if you do then reduce the meat consumed) :D

I think that you can "strop" on almost anything.... Not sure you can call it stropping, however.

Two things come to mind.... MDF or a flattened piece of wood such as Maple.

I have seen newspaper specifically listed as a something to use as a strop. I have not tried this, but, I have been told (I do not claim it is true) that newspaper's ink acts as an abrasive to give a final finish. I have also heard of cardboard being used. You might even be able to simply use another piece of steel the way you would "steel" a knife. If you already have everything the way you want and only need a hone, then just go ahead and use newspaper to remove the bur.

[Harold Burrell]

"Vegan stropping."

Hmmm...

I wonder if a kiwi would work? ;)

[David Weaver]

There are vegan strops. I don't know how good they are, though. Best to join a shave forum to ask.

Griggs is a vegan and he shaves, but last I talked to him, he was keeping his razor in shape on .1 micron iron oxide on balsa, which makes for a super keen razor. Kremer pigments sells a big bag of it for about 10 bucks plus shipping - enough to last a decade. It makes an edge so keen for me that it shaves off every little bump on my face.

There's tons of options that are almost as good as leather.

If iron oxide is too keen, you could use a balsa strop with chromium oxide powder or paste once a week and palm strop every day between (there are videos of palm stropping on youtube - alex gilmore of thejapanblade.com does it on his videos - I just can't find one. All you do with a *clean and dry* palm is flatten your hand out so that your palm skin is tight and run the razor over it (drawing the edge, of course, leading edge into the palm would cause a problem).

[David Weaver]

I forgot that livi palm strops (a razor maker in italy)

Somewhere after 2:40 in this video. Livi's razors are very heavy, and this one is kamisori style. This heavy handed stropping style may not work as well on other razors, I would watch a barber instead, but the palm stropping part is informative. Slower to start, of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbZvnUPUD-A

I've never had palm stropping match horse leather, but it's useful sometimes if you're too lazy to get something out. Works in the shop, too, but makes for dirty palms. It would knock the bite off of a chromium oxide edge.

[Mel Fulks]

I've had a most difficult time with razor stropping. Naturally I blame it on someone else,specifically the barbers I heard as
a child who made a sound like an old flat belt machine. When I strop now I think of an old story about an actor and film
director. In my mind the actor is Jack Lemmon. Anyway the director listens to actor go through a scene then says "less,Jack,less". Jack goes through scene a couple more times and gets same comment .So Jack says "if I do any less I won't be DOING anything!". Director replies "now you've got it!" It's hard to understand how such light pressure could
accomplish anything.

[Winton Applegate]

Somehow they got along and I often wonder: How?

I don't know who he is or how well made his planes are. He pares with his shoulder. I like to do that. Seems like that doesn't get mentioned here. Woh almost got off topic there . . .

He makes planes so he should know how to sharpen and make them sing like a fine instrument. I did notice that while planing his jointer really was catching and not planing well to the end. I was seeing that in the other YouTube vid of some one using a woody jointer to take some heavy cuts.

TO ME it looked like his blade wasn't all that great and could have sliced better instead of hacking and catching. Maybe it is a booty trap of using a jointer without a front tote and having to grip it like that. I doubt it though. I haven't used a big woody jointer like that though I really wanted one from Old Street tools until they stopped taking orders.

Any way I do know that if I were planing that short little hunk of bubinga for the plane my LV BU jointer or my LV BU finish plane with a cambered blade and the throat way open for a heavy cut I could have planed through and not caught like that. Once one of those gets started it is pretty easy to keep 'er going and even take some steps on a long plank.

Might be time for another Winton in running shorts vid.
Nah . . . that would call for me to get up off the couch.

So . . . you will just have to visualize it all in your mind's eye. I ain't lyon'.

PS: still haven't got the spell checker back up from the bearing overhaul. Off tomorrow so maybe then.

[Kees Heiden]

Yesterday I've been watching that Chinese guy on youtube again. He has a fluent planing style. And that with these akward looking Chinese planes, not heavy weights either. Catching at the end of the stroke happens to me too. It's mostly a technique think and not taking too thick of a shaving. At the end of the stroke the plane looses support under the front end and wants to dive down. You need to catch it before that happens. Thick shavings make it worse.

[Kees Heiden]

Here's the link to the Chinese master, it even has subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwDJHJos39M

Quote: "To plane a stock, you can't exert your force like a cow, You must swing the plane, even faster".

It's all about momentum. Momentum depends on weight and speed. When you start a plane stroke, you can put your weight behind the plane and accelerate it. A wooden plane is lighter, so needs more speed then a heavy iron plane. Then when you stretch out, you can't push so hard anymore, and you are using the momentum to continue planing. But when the planing resistance is higher then the force you can apply, the plane will descelerate and bog down. So a good planer will stop, set a step forward and give it a new push. Walking the plane along a long board in one continual swoop is only possible when the shaving is narrow or not so deep, so you can push harder then the resistance, even when you are standing on one leg.