I think it's worth mentioning that stropping can bring a knife back to a sharp edge that has only been worn down with no damage. Meaning the blade is intact, just goes dull naturally through use. No chips, no bends, no real damage. Whetstones will restore an edge from damage while stropping will not.
@@mic7265 I bet you knew it inside that it would be good as an option the strop, instead of the honing rod whether it is ceramic or diamond. The leather with a layer of pasta works fine to keep your edge razor sharp. I'm a bit like that too , too often. I know the answer inside, but from a little insecurity ask around and read on the internet how others view things, looking for confirmation. Then you start to look for the answer of which you already knew it was right to do it the way you already saw it. Doesn't always work like that ofcourse. There are situations when you do have to do some research to come up with a conclusion. But this is fairly simple. There are people that haven't touched a stone with their knife for years. Stropping is all they need to keep going. All the best 🙏👌👍
This looks like a good idea Ricky. I have been sharpening knives for about 49.5 years now and I am realizing that there is always something new to learn. 😀 Lately I have been using a carbon wet stone, followed by a 1k grit wet stone, and follow that with a 1k grit sand paper (wet), on a flat, smooth, marble back splash stone; edge trailing. However, I may try your idea and see how that works too. Great videos ! Thank you for your time and sharing this information with all of us.
Great job Ricky! I am following your channel for about an year, and you are by far the best one on youtube, down to earth, no attitude, no arrogance and very knowledgeable about knives and thanks to you I learned a lot!! I love to cook but lately I am so busy with family and work schedules and very little time for sharpening my knives, so I am paying attention on your Stropping tutorial videos to see if this is the way to maintain the knives sharpened. Also I am looking for a new pairing knife, any suggestion? Best of luck and keep the good work.
Helo Ricky, good work as always. (not an english speaker, so apologies for advance). I see you work with a quality leather strop and a chromium compound. I used to start with it. I was doing many experimentations with many kind of strops, because i love stroping the same way as you do. For example i am working with leather, balsa wood, synthetic silk, glass and so on. I have achieved better results with a diamond based compounds instaed of chromium. Leather is good, simply balsa too. The most brutall strop i have is a sheat of synthetic silk glued to a glass made base. Results are excelent, but really hard to work with it. Minor angle change and blade is damaged and even the silk sheat is really fragile. Today i work with a nanotechnology paper (selled on the plane model workshop), heated to a balsa wood base, cutted to the shape of a water stone (posibble to put it in the stone holder :-) ) with a diamond based compound. DMT diamond water spray 0.5 micron works pretty sweat as a final strop, easy to aplly. My working schedule with a strop is leather on the wooden base 10 micron diamond compound, leather on the wooden base with 7 micron diamond compound, nanopaper on the balsa base with 3 micron diamond compound, same at the 0.5 micron and final on clean horse cordovan razor strop. Best results for me.
I am a BIG fan of stropping. I took my new Nexus knife and did a quick paper test and it has minimal use so far, so mostly factory edge, and it cuts clean. After 7 or 8 times on each side with a leather strop and green Enkay, it will effortlessly push cut cleanly on magazine paper. Thanks for the great info you put up here.
How do you like your dalstrong stone's? I have their 1k and 6k stone and just replace them with suehiro stones since they felt very rough and dead feeling and not correctly rated with their grit
Great video. thanks for answering my question with this video. Now I shall learn to strop more on the leather strop that I bought from you and maybe buy and try out one of the demo ones that you are selling.
Have a go with the Tormek Honing/Stropping compound - it's graded at 6000 grit for their honing wheel on the machine which I have at home - but I work as a chef on yachts and often spend months away on various jobs. I carry a leather strop and a tube of that compound rather than a stone because it's lighter in my luggage - I have Dragon and Dalstrong knives and it does the job effortlessly yielding an amazing polish
Hi, little hint about using oil. Take a few drops of olive oil on a clean strop and rub it into the leather with your hands, they will help heat up the leather a bit. If you use a heat gun or hair dryer, use it on the leather. Now use your green compound and just rub it into the strop until you get it covered. Don't worry if it is not 100% covered. After a few times loading it up it will become covered. Hope this helps. Ray, Oklahoma
I haven’t tested the higher quality leather from your store yet, but: The rolled buffalo for me is “the stuff of dreams.” I used it loaded, raw, abused the heck out of the first one I purchased by literally stropping every knife in my drawer in one sitting, and it still looks fresh and feels amazing.
Great work man! Ryky, I was wondering if you've thought about doing a Yanagiba/Gyuto/Deba video comparison on different meats? Honestly, I can't seem to find many videos that compare the feeling of cutting meats with those knives and how they stack up against each other. It would be pretty cool to see you go through some meats or fish after a sharpening session.
I've been maintaining my edges with strops for the last several months with great results, but I never thought about stropping a completely dull knife. I might have to find something junky to dull. Great stuff, Ryky!
Its totally possible. Depends if the edge is apex or not how high in micron or low in grit you have to go. I mean you could go 10 micron it would get a non apex edge back in apex. If your edge is in apex and just needs a freshening you might only need 1 and .5 micron compound.
Ryky I use Bark River compounds Black (3000 grit) Green (6000 grit) and White (12000 grit) They all work great. Easily available to you as they're made in the USA.
I imagine that once you get a good edge grind on a knife, stropping will bring back the edge. I was practicing on my Burrfection strop with my pocket knife over the weekend, and the stopping seemed to have a bigger impact on the sharpness than trying to sharpen traditionally.
After the long wait they finally arived !! My Burrfection leather strops. With rolled buffalo and buffalo backs, i have been stropping with these for about one week now and i am super happy to have these great strops. Taking the micro burrs of with ease and pushcutting no problem. To take it up another notch, i am going to order a 1/2 and or a 1/4 diamond paste / spray. Will be interesting to see what more this can do for the maintenance of my edges. Thanks for these great strops ! keep it up ! and keep it raining !!!!
If you are talking about .5 and .25 micron it probably won't help that much in on going maintenance of your edge. As that is really low in micron. Probably need to start off with 1 micron then .5, and .25. Then you are talking months and months in between stones as long as their aren't chips etc in the edge.
Of course its really hard to go from micron to grit because grit on what stone and Japanese grit or american grit or shapton etc. I guess I should have asked what grit stone you stop on? 1 micron is probably around 8k-11k. .5 micron is like 20k-30k range. My last stone is 5k. So thats why I then go to 1 micron and then finish on .5 micron. Frequent stropping touchups work well with those microns for me. If its longer time between touchups you probably have to go higher micron like 3 to 5 micron. Thinking is longer time between touchups the more damage to edge the higher micron you need to bring it back. Thats why I give my knives a dozen or 2 strokes on each strop a week. Unless you are chipping your knife you can an extremely long time between full sharpening sessions. All that depends on cutting board material and materials being cut and how much use each knife is getting etc. I get my stropping material from the guy at CKTG www.chefknivestogo.com/strops.html Love the sprays and emulsions. I typically use felt and nano cloth strops and skip the leather. Just personally preference. The cool thing about the emulsions is it can be applied directly to the stones. Amazing.
I have a coarse stop I use for sharpening. I mix bark river grey compound with the dust I collect from flattening an old Norton Translucent Arkansas Stone with a blue DMT diamond stone. It cuts fairly slowly...but it does definitely cut at the edge, even on higher HRC and supersteel blades. The stone itself has the ability to pre-mirror polish edges when it's used dry. Wanting to harness that effect, I judged that the ultra fine powder would be stabilized by the compound. Luckily I wasn't wrong. It's stayed impregnated into the strop with only 1 need to add more in the 3 years since. I mostly use it to gently remove burrs while adding a tiny but stable micro-bevel as my last sharpening step.
Saw a kitchen guy talking about stropping, and he used olive oil to help clean off the stropping compound. One down side to oil on leather is that it softens it. A bit of a problem if you are using saddle type thick leather for your strop. Check out some of the straight razor stropping and sharpening videos.
I have the same good experience with SG2 knifes on a strop. I think for knife maintenance on daily base stropping is great! I will also try it on my new Sukenari HAP40 Kiritsuke. Let's see how this will work. Stropping treat the knife with much more care (than stones) and is good for a long lasting life of the knife. I will only go to my stone, if I really have to...
great video! I've only been sharpening on stones up to 6k (no name Chinese 600, 1500, shapton glass 2k, suehiro cerax 6k). I will definitely look into stropping after this video!
The stropping world is just as complex as the whetstone world. You have diamond sprays, CBM and boron carbide emulsions that you can even apply directly to the whetstone for some advance techniques. But everyone should be stropping unless you are a master sharpener.
Tried my first strop last year. It came loaded with a green compound. Later I added some of the block compound to the strop. It has not worked for me at all. Now there are gaps where the compound does not stick. I've tried adding a little mineral oil w/o success. I do not know what is going on--cheap compound?--but I have given up for now adding any compound. Most of my knives are not kitchen knives or high hardness HRC, so I have found a ceramic steel works well. I know you recommend a strop for 60 HRC or above, but you have stated that a good strop will work well on these knives without compound, albeit with perhaps more time involved.
Chosera 1000, Naniwa Snow White, Bovine strop with .125 micron diamond spray. GREAT mirror edge. SUPER clean. Brought 2 friend's knives with completely rolled edges back to shaving hair with the grain 😎 (not to mention all my own personal knives I sharpen weekly)
I have tried a grey compound that is made for stainless steel prep at about 320 grit in the past,experiment really.. It works but overall it makes more sense to just buy an equal corundum stone.Or even a soft arkansas stone to use as they are fairly cheap these days.Both will outlast the compound by a longshot in the long run.
I actually use a ground-down ceramic floor tile rip to take my burrs off... I'm thinking about putting a leather strip on the other side for stropping.
After about 3 weeks or so I will take my knives and strop them using regular leather and green chromium oxide compound. It brings the edge back to life just that quick. The compound I use is between 20,000 and 25,000 grit. I don't have to put my knives to my stones but about twice a year. And after sharpening by stones, including my 8000, I'll end up using my strop for that well polished and refined edge that makes the knife edge scary sharp. I'm glad to see that stropping is becoming part of your maintenance routine.
Looking forward to the future videos of compound vs stone. I use my king KDS 6000 whenever I feel the edge isn't super clean. Use it on Nexus 63 rockwell and Tojiro DP. Excellent results, quick, economically priced and I don't soak the 6000 at all. It's great for my needs (non professional restaurant worker). I cleaned/rounded the spine on my nexus using KDS 1000, then 6000. Any reason I'd be inclined to buy the Atoma 400? Stay sharp! O and the mirror like finish from the KDS 6000 isn't for all, but to me it's like heaven. I highly recommend people get to a knife store and see their options, not to mention its good for local businesses and communities alike.
I wouldn't throw in a diamond plate unless you are using it to flatten/lap your whetstones. If you need a low grit stone stick to all whetstones. Going from a 400 diamond plate to the 1000 on your KDS would be a pain. Those diamond patterns take a lot of effort to get rid of. Pro sharpeners when using diamond plates for speed usually have to switch to a corresponding low grit whetstone. So say 400 diamond they might go 320 whetstone to get rid of the diamond scratch pattern then proceed through their normal stone routine.
I strop my kitchen knifes and EDC knifes every day I use them and almost never put them to a stone. I use the 2 Harold’s and Bark River white block compound.. About the only time I use the stones Is for friends and customers knives which usually are dull enough you cannot cut yourself with them. BTW ..what compound is that yellow compound that is on the rolled Buffalo strop I got from you recently? If I remember right it was 13,000 grit. Thxs.
lol I've done that before with the heat gun and mineral oil for putting compound on strops. Didn't work for me either lol. I just find that simple is best, and rubbing it on like a crayon then spreading it out with some oil. Leaves you with much less compound but it works way better and leaves a smoother surface. And hasn't decreased cutting performance at all either. I find it'll polish up an edge nicely like that. I've learned that with the block compounds you need to be able to see leather through the compound. If you can't its too much.
1mm? Well you've obviously worked out some tricks to apply it that I haven't. I'm sure its possible, I've seen some companies sell pre-loaded strops like that. I just can't get that to work for myself with similar block compound like what Ricky is using. It ended up uneven and horrible, and the knife would just end up scraping the compound off the leather and the compound would come up off the bevel onto the side of the blade and spoil the finish. It was a disaster lol. But if you can make it work thats great. Maybe you should share your tricks of the trade.
Ah, well there you go. Multiple applications. I was trying to do it all at once lol. I might give it a go next time I'm loading up a strop. I might use one of my junked ones first till I get it right.
For weekly maintenance of knives that aren't chipped but merely dulled from the week of use, this demo of green then red compound looks great. Ryrky has also demoed the use of 3M lapping film as an alternative to whetstones; does anyone have any thoughts about using 3M lapping film (5 micron then 1 micron) versus compound on leather for weekly maintenance? The startup cost for the 3M film would be less than buying 2 leather strops and the compound, but would be as effective? Any advice would be appreciated!
Ricky, I'm trying to make my own strop, I've purchased a few bits of leather. But your examples seem to be much thicker then what I can find. Do they have some backing material to them or are they just hide? Your's seem a good 5mm, what I can get is about 1.5-2mm max. Thank you!
I have a question, I have SUEHIRO RIKA 5000 should i use rather green or red compound? And another one, can I use KUROBARA TSUBAKI Hamono 100ml on strop or its strictly on knife? Thank you very much, I really appreciate what you are doing 👍.
I use the Bark River and JRE Black Magic compound which is rated at 3000 grit. They dont call it black magic for nothing because if you can only have one compound and want to use mainly stropping for edge maintenance it black is a must! Fantastic for bringing back a dull edge back to a razor sharp working edge. Move to green which is 6000 grit if desired! -Knifeability
Already stopped by my local saddle shop got some leather and have 2 strops made. Not Buffalo hide just saddle grade leather. first one was messed up by improper technique second one is going strong.
I’ve just discovered your channel. Great videos! Question: In choosing stropping compounds for cooking knives, have you considered that the chrome used in the green compound can be toxic? Chrome oxide is a low toxicity form of the metal, but chrome (VI) is highly carcinogenic (see Erin Brokovitch) and is an impurity present in chrome oxide preparations. Knives should be washed well after stropping before food contact. As a precaution, I wouldn’t work with chrome based compound in my kitchen.
Nice video. I recommend you use Aluminum oxide(white compound 10~1 micron) and Chromium Oxide(Green compound 1~0.1 micron) Don't try to heat it up and all that DIY thous liquid compounds have special additives that make them into a liquid. Instead just rub it on the leather.
Hello Sir! I hope all is well. By the way i have a miyabi black and I would like to ask you for help on what’s the best way to sharpen it. Wet stone or stropping? Also what’s a good brand and what grit. Thank you so much.
I'm using a DIY strop made with a very old and quite worn belt and some no brand chinese compound, but to my surprise it works well cosidering the stuff im using, and you gave me the idea of using mineral oil to spread the compound better and to expose fresh compound, i dont have any expensive or high rockwell hardness knives but for a $20 dollar knife works nice but it does not do miracles, but hey it cost me like 3 dollars.
Honestly I would avoid all compounds with oil. Cross contamination risk is too high. Oil does not mix with whetstones. Stick to diamond, CBN and Boron Carbide sprays/emulsions.
Mineral oil is used as a solvent for the polishing compound, it helps to spread the compound better in the leather strop, not for the stones, and wipe your blade between each use on different sharpening mediums if cross contamination is a problem. Just common sence.
I totally get it. I first started on the green crayon but quickly switched and never looked back. A lot of 1st timer sharpeners come to this channel so its a lot easier if they just skip it. Especially if they are keeping all of their sharpening supplies together. Its very easy for a bad accident to happen. But the diamond, CBN and boron sprays/emulsions are just vastly superior to the crayon compounds and pastes. So its easy enough just to skip them..
Im sure they work much better than those big blocks of wax compound but back to my fist point, for my cheap work oriented knives its just good enough, aside the fact that i bought a little block of compound and i had already some wood and the belt, i can't complain about the results given the money spent, like 3 dollars maybe. I use a double sided paddle strop and i keep it in a plastic bag, thats all, no risk of geting it dirty or contaminated.
Dear Ricky, I appreciate your videos and your explanations. I only use Japanese knives in my house-almost all super Aogami steel. I'm delighted with it. As for the compound for strops, I would like to ask you which one I can base myself on to obtain this 60000 grit you mentioned. Thank you very much.
Bought two of your strops; buffalo/acrylic and shell cordovan/carbon fiber, which two compounds would you consider the best for these two strops. Cook daily and needed a quick way to get my knives sharpened.
Question. Do you know what edge they put on that knife in the video? Thin edge, medium edge, or thick edge? I have looked at buying the 8.2 inch version but they JUST came back in stock and I’m not sure which edge they sharpened it to. So I’m not sure which edge to ask for it to be sharpened to when I order it, which is why I haven’t ordered it yet. I use the TEMO .5 micron diamond stropping compound on my buffalo leather (personally signed) RyKy made strop!! It works extremely well after I finish an edge on a Chosera 3000!!! Razor sharp! As for daily maintaince it works very well as well.
Burrfection ok so a medium edge! That is what I honestly was thinking. And by medium I assume around a 15 degree each side. 8 degree each side I would assume is thin and 30 degrees each side would be thick side. I am about to order me one now with a medium edge. Was just waiting for the edge!! Seems to have some great retention. Also just ordered me a complete 25 piece set of nexus knives. I am very impressed with them along with the yaxell dragons! I own every dragon except the bread knife by choice. Keep up the great videos! PS cutleryandmore has the fusions back in stock (i assume not for long)!!
Ricky, are you still maintaining your straight razors with your whetstones/strops? If so, will you show us what you do? Your video piqued has my interest in straight razors because it shows that you don't need expensive high maintenance stones to get a razor sharp edge. Thanks! Jeff
Most stones after 6k-8k the price becomes huge. It is more cost efficient to simply get 5 or 6 strops with compound on them. I would stay with diamond, CBN or Boron Carbide sprays/emulsions. A lot easier to work with then the compound "Crayons". This is for knives or razors. The low grit stones put the apex on the edge every grit after just refines that scratch pattern. And these sprays you can get from 10 micron to something insane like .025 micron.
Hey Ryky, I've been watching a lot of your videos here lately and have been interested in some of the Dalstrong Shogun series. I noticed that they are switching most of their knives to an AUS-10V steel from VG10. Have they sent you any of these new knives with the AUS-10V and I'm curious what your honest thoughts are on this.
Justin Horner: I’ve asked this question as well an am very curious to hear the answer. Just recently noticed a few virtually identical Dalstrong knockoffs labeled as vg10 on Amazon. I bet that may have something to do with the switch after getting a message back from customer service saying that the perceived quality of vg10 steel had gone down (according to them). Their AUS 10V is supposed to be a bit tougher due to the added nickel in the alloy (according to Dalstrong) but I have nothing to compare it to. Waiting in anticipation as well 👍🏻
I dont know much about Dalstrong but VG10 is looked down on a lot in the knife world especially high end kitchen world. Not that there is anything wrong with the steel but most places especially the big knife retailers do not do a good job heat treating it. A lot of people avoid VG10 unless its certain small independent blacksmiths that put the time and effort into it. Its kind of the word of mouth thing basically Shun helped to give Vg10 a band name even if the steel itself doesn't deserve a bad name. When buying a chef knife especially high end or a quality one. I wouldn't recommend steel being a primary reason to buy or avoid a knife. Unless you have so many knives you are just looking for a specific steel. The most important aspects are the dimensions and the profile. Typically knives are 210mm or 240mm but unless they are huge retailers those numbers can be off as much as 20mm like when they are hand made. Then the profile of the knife is huge aspect. Some have higher heels. Flat spots, gentle curves, or sharp bellys. Some people like to rock cut and some people dont. I would check the guys out over at CKTG (www.chefknivestogo.com) and their forums. They are extremely helpful and aren't really the arrogant knife guys that are in other forums. By reading the forum you really learn more about a knife then just the steel. Like I hate knives with lots of belly. Doesn't matter if its $1000 knife made with super steel. I don't like the feel of it and I dont perform well with it. Everyone has their own tendencies so its a good thing to find out.
I'm finding that my knives are coming duller off the green compound strop than they are after the ceramic hone. I'm assuming my angle is wrong, but I'm not really sure how to know since I've just started sharpening and use an fixed angle apex system. Any advice? I'm trying to sharpen a cutco 7" santoku with a hollow grind
I'm a chef and working in a busy restaurant means all our knives go through constant use. I am an advocate of stropping for maintaining the edge of a knife and I've found that stropping knives extends the periods between sharpenings by at least twice(meaning instead of sharpening knives every 2 or 3 weeks, one can sharpen knives once a month or so when stropping is used for edge maintenance).
Guiltaur… I'm a big fan of stropping, but I've wondered if it's realistic in a professional kitchen. I'm a home cook, but wondering if a pro would strop during a service, or only before or after?
Bradley Gong If knives are maintained properly, one should not have to strop during service. Actually, the only times a knife generally needs to be used during service is for finishing/garnishing dishes. The bulk of knife use takes place before or after service periods during prep duties.
Guiltaur… yes, good point. I guess my question is, if you felt the need while prepping, would you break out a strop, or do you only do it before or after? While I don't like them, steels take a couple swipes and a wipe, whereas stropping takes a little longer, the knife should be washed if stropped on compound, and the strop maybe put away (so it doesn't get wet).
Bradley Gong Properly maintained knives should not need stropping during regular use. A knife stopped before or after use should last a prep duty period. If a knife that is properly sharpened with bevel geometry appropriate for the blade design and material requires stropping or touching up with a honing instrument during prep work, there is a problem that lies with the knife or the user. That being said, in a situation where a knife requires stropping during use, no one in a kitchen would break out a stropping paddle or belt and compound. One can easily strop using a honing ceramic rod without compound to bring an edge back in order. I've worked with older chefs who used newspaper for a stropping surface.
I'm wondering is it a real edge though or just a wire egde ? Because if you start cooking with a wire edge your blade will be dull again after a day of use.
Its a real edge. Even after his cut test the out of the box edge was still at apex. Stropping just removed enough material to bring the apex fully back into alignment. Got rid of the little fat. If his compound was higher in micron aka lower in grit he could have brought a dull non apex edge back to apex.
Both are fine. Buffalo is a bit more consistent when buying the right grade. Go with what you can afford or fine locally. Or see what i have made store.burrfection.com/collections/strops
Will stropping give me a better edge than my 8000 stone or is using the 8000 stone the same as using 8000 stropping compound? Is there a stropping vs stone video?
After more researching, I think Ricky's "Stropping vs Polishing Your Knife" video answers my question. I may buy a strop but I am happy with my 8000 whet stone for now
I would say the initial edge would be great after you hop off the stone/strop. However, a strop will only extend the time between sharpenings. So IMO it would be kind of redundant to see a strop vs stone comparison because you'll probably do amazing on both! (But I still want to see that video)
Plus with CBN emulsions they can be applied directly to your whetstone no strop needed. You can really achieve some high level sharpening techniques doing that. Pastes and the crayon style compounds I have left those years ago and they seem pretty ancient now. At least in the kitchen world. Field strops, travel strops, or edc type of knives I know they still get a heavy work out. But high end kitchen knives I would stick to diamond, boron carbide, or CBN emulsions/sprays and go felt or nano cloth strops and skip the leather entirely. Of course that is just what works best for me.
Wait so you're telling me that you put the emulsion straight on the whetstone? Wouldn't that be wasting the emulsion because after you use it once, you need to wash off the whetstone? I would personally prefer to have a completely separate strop.
Me personally no. Pro sharpeners and advanced hobbyists yes.The 2 biggest reasons they would do it is speed and and extreme high hardness super steels say like ZDP-189. That can go to 67-68 HRC. So if you have normal stones even high quality ones it might do nothing. So they would add the CBN emulsion to the stone to actually cut the steel. Or they are just going for speed because they have so many knives to get done. The emulsion on the stone can speed the process up by enhancing the cutting ability of the stone buy you still get the nice smooth whetstone scratch pattern. Without the need for say diamond plates. Me I have 2 felt strops and 1 nano cloth strop. With 3 micron, 1 micron and .5 micron sprays. I think the 3 micron is diamond and the other 2 are boron sprays.
Didn't really think people would be made of money, but lo and behold, they do exist lol. I like to go cheap, so with my modified Spyderco sharpmaker I can't really do that lol. But it is nice to know that I have the option to
Got some Herold green and red pastes and loaded up a couple newly made leather strops… QUESTION: Does anyone else find the Herold pastes to feel sticky/grabby/waxy even after they've dried overnight?
After not enjoying the stickiness, I softened up the compound on the strop with mineral oil, then wiped off what came off easily, smoothed it out, and let it dry again. It was definitely less sticky and grabby, but the compound fairly quickly gets smooth and shiny and seems like *_it_* is getting polished. Anyone else have these experiences with the Herold?
Buy a wide paper masking tape and stick it on a plank or elsewhere. Do it 2-3 layers to get a softer touch. Rub it with dry compound (do not dissolve or heat it). You won’t see your compound on it but when you start working your knife - black marks will appear and after a while all area will be completely black, but the knife will get shine and sharpness and there will be no mud on it (of course, you must prepare it properly on a stone beforehand if it was completely dull). At the end, you just peel the tape off and throw away. Save your time and money. Good luck!
I’m curious to know if using stropping as your primary sharpening method would result in a longer lasting edge as compared to a whetstone. Because the leather should bend more than the surface of the whetstone, I imagine over time the resulting edge should be a little more convex which could help strengthen the edge and prevent it from rolling. Idk how much the slurry on a whetstone would contribute to this same effect. Question: Do you think you could do a rope cut test with the same knife and both methods of edge maintenance?
Edges won't convex on a strop unless the leather is soft. Most rolled leather for stropping is quite firm. There is nothing wrong with a convex edge, I have convex or scandivex edges on a lot of my hunting/bushcraft knives but they serve a purpose. I'm not sure as to the performance in the kitchen if edges convex. For chopping it might be okay as convex edges chop well.
Buddha Mack : before I found this channel bought a few nicer knives and started sharpening on a whetstone I used a Worksharp thin belt sharpener that claimed its main advantage was the convex curvature of the edge formed by sharpening that way. It definitely had an edge (pun intended) over the other sharpening tools I had tried. The edge could be polished more and that razor sharp edge was workable for longer but didn’t retain razor sharpness for quite as long as some of the other methods. I don’t think the edge ever rolled on me though. I did however run into profiling issues with that method of sharpening, hence why I ended up switching to whetstones. Even if you can’t see it with naked eye the leather will bend when you apply pressure in the first part of that lower grit stropping technique for resharpening purposes. There are a lot of really cool SEM 1 micron scale closeup pictures, using different stones and stropping techniques on a wordpress I just found called “science of sharp” if you want to take a look 👍🏻
I'm definitely not a fan of all these sharpening systems out there. Unless you run a knife making business I cant see the point. Whetstones are easy and quick once you develop your technique. I have seen some of the microscope pics for whetstones but not for strops so I will check that out. I'm sure that it would have some give in the leather but you don't need much pressure for stropping. It would more so on the belt strops that most use for cut throat razors.
Buddha Mack : yeah there are a lot of different ways to sharpen but no way is perfect. The belt sharpener was waaaay quicker than a whetstone but I ended up with bellies and troughs in my knives so it would cut stuff well where the blade contacted the board, but would leave a piece connecting them which rendered my knives almost useless for push cuts and chopping which are my two preferred cutting methods for food prep
Another cut test with this knife just using stropping would be a great comparison! My guess is that the stropped edge would do better, maybe because there might be a slight convex, but more because with no burr (weaker metal) ever being raised, it seems like it would be a stronger edge.
Try using a double boiler to melt the compound then add the oil, mix and pour in to some kind of container. I use a small mason jar. Let me know how it works for you. Keep in mind you boiler will not be usable for anything else after this.
Sorry I'm not a native speaker, could someone explain the word stropping? Is it like a wet stone, without water? And what does the compound do, if you not even need to let it dry first?
oh0stv… stropping is using *_very light_* edge trailing strokes on leather mounted on a stiff material like wood or glass. Ryky sells some through his Etsy store, and has other helpful videos on stropping. Honing compound can be applied to the leather to add abrasion. I have different strops loaded with different compounds. It is also useful to finish oh bare leather, as that has a very slight amount of naturally abrasive silicates.
It would be good to know your thoughts on how to identify good and bad leather, and what are the consequences of using bad leather for stropping. I'm now obsessed about learning knife sharpening, thanks a lot!
Robin Chew… soft leather (or too much pressure) has the possibility of rounding your edge by curling around it. It sounds like Ryky is dropping the latigo because it absorbs too much of compound.
Thanks for the response. I ended up buying a cheapo 26AUD strop. One big disadvantage is the weight of the wood, it won't stay in place, so it's not fun to strop on, and probably an accident waiting to happen. So I glued the strop onto a brick and it's all good now. The leather looks more furry than leathery, but it's the compound that does the job, and I'm able to get a satisfactory sharp edge on the knife, but not slice-in-midair sharpness.
Robin Chew… I put a layer of skid proof material (rubbery) on the table under my strop. Or, hardware stores sell small adhesive rubber feet that you can stick to the bottom of your strop (like Ryky's begun doing). But gluing to a brick will work too! 😆 When I make my strops, I tend to make the ones I'm going to load with compound smooth side up. I do have one that I bought that is double sided, and I prefer stropping on it on the fuzzy side with no compound. But yes, typically you're primarily interested in the compound. What compound are you using?
it should actually enhance the durability by increasing the polish giving a smoother cut. Plus there is generally less wear on the knives than you would get running through a full series of stones.
Kurt Forbes I read a lot about leather decreasing edge retention and the more corse the stone the better is the edge retention and some stones are better for it than others
Using a steel yes I can see that but honing does remove the weaker metal it is not just bending it back and forth. www.knifeplanet.net/the-riddle-of-steel-edge-retention/ Is probably what you are thinking.
I have a camping knife that does everything from spitting wood to opening cans, I haven't noticed a difference in edge retention between stropping or sharpening before a trip. However after opening about 5 cans between stropping the blade gets to jagged for the strop. I don't have a stone large enough for my chief knifes so I just strop them.
I would recommend going with Diamond, CBN, or Boron Carbide sprays/emulsions over the "crayon" style compound especially when anything is being mixed with oil. The cross contamination risk is to great. Oil does not mix with your whetstones. So if you have $300 in whetstones a little oil will destroy those stones. Especially when you are doing a full sharpening routine from stone to strop in the same session. Don't risk cross contamination with any compound you need oil for.
It's very difficult to imagine ruining a whetstone by going from a strop with a slight amount of mineral oil on it back to the coarser whetstone, especially not someone like Ryky. To do so would be a brain fart of the highest magnitude and highly unlikely.
The point is always "Best practice". Many beginners don't know better and keep all of their supplies in a box together. Then 1 unforeseen accident causes the death of stones. Or they are messy or whatever. A million different things could happen. And it needs to be pointed out to those beginners. All of the high end emulsions diamond, cbn, boron carbide are all water based for a reason and come in spray form. 2 little sprays last for dozens of knives. I use to use the chromium oxide "Green Bar" myself but that was years and years ago. Then switched to diamond pastes and about 5 years ago when the emulsions/sprays became so popular switched and never looked back.
I don't find it surprising, grit is the key and that method is already used on wheels. I also don't think that leather type or quality have any effect with such a layer of compound (at the beginning, leather strops are made to be used without compound). Moreover, balsa wood is known to work well as compound's base, so I think we could have a similar result with this cheap material. Maybe we could also ask the question of the true state of the knife before stropping it. A knife's edge is really dull when it can't be straightened and I'm not sure that it's the case after the rope cut test (espacially given it's hardness and if the knife was already well sharpened before). So I'm skeptical on the fact that you have sharpened this knife and not just straightened and polished it's cutting edge. I hope that you will make your future comparisons by dulling the knife on a whetstone beforehand as you used to do.
His compound was too high to apex the edge. He brought the edge back to life/freshened it up. Because even after the rope cut test the edge was still apexed. If not he would have needed lower compound. Its still possible to apex an edge with compound and strop only but it would be high micron or low grit/ Most compounds are in micron not grits at least the high quality sprays/emulsions not the crayon style.
IMHO a strop can never replace a stone..but I will say however, a strop can and should absolutely replace a steel.. I know most people with in depth knowledge of sharpening would agree. I have seen, time and time again, even when properly used, the damage, uneven wear and premature wear that a steel can do to a blade is horrible. I exclusively use a custom made plain strop in my kitchen for touch up.. it works the best and keeps the edge even for much longer in between a honing with a stone.
I have to agree 100 %. I've tried steels before and do strop every edge as the finally step. Steels are little more than files and remove far to much metal I believe. Plus stones are cheap enough,even diamonds can be had fairly reasonable anymore for use on the real highend harder wear resistant steels these days.
I think it's worth mentioning that stropping can bring a knife back to a sharp edge that has only been worn down with no damage. Meaning the blade is intact, just goes dull naturally through use. No chips, no bends, no real damage. Whetstones will restore an edge from damage while stropping will not.
Would it work to strop a knife instead of using a honing rod?
@@mic7265
ofcourse.
Works excellent.
@@Ve-suvius thank you
@@mic7265
I bet you knew it inside that it would be good as an option the strop, instead of the honing rod whether it is ceramic or diamond.
The leather with a layer of pasta works fine to keep your edge razor sharp.
I'm a bit like that too , too often. I know the answer inside, but from a little insecurity ask around and read on the internet how others view things, looking for confirmation. Then you start to look for the answer of which you already knew it was right to do it the way you already saw it.
Doesn't always work like that ofcourse. There are situations when you do have to do some research to come up with a conclusion.
But this is fairly simple. There are people that haven't touched a stone with their knife for years. Stropping is all they need to keep going.
All the best 🙏👌👍
@@Ve-suvius very true thank you very much
This looks like a good idea Ricky. I have been sharpening knives for about 49.5 years now and I am realizing that there is always something new to learn. 😀 Lately I have been using a carbon wet stone, followed by a 1k grit wet stone, and follow that with a 1k grit sand paper (wet), on a flat, smooth, marble back splash stone; edge trailing. However, I may try your idea and see how that works too. Great videos ! Thank you for your time and sharing this information with all of us.
Great job Ricky! I am following your channel for about an year, and you are by far the best one on youtube, down to earth, no attitude, no arrogance and very knowledgeable about knives and thanks to you I learned a lot!! I love to cook but lately I am so busy with family and work schedules and very little time for sharpening my knives, so I am paying attention on your Stropping tutorial videos to see if this is the way to maintain the knives sharpened. Also I am looking for a new pairing knife, any suggestion? Best of luck and keep the good work.
Helo Ricky, good work as always. (not an english speaker, so apologies for advance). I see you work with a quality leather strop and a chromium compound. I used to start with it. I was doing many experimentations with many kind of strops, because i love stroping the same way as you do. For example i am working with leather, balsa wood, synthetic silk, glass and so on. I have achieved better results with a diamond based compounds instaed of chromium. Leather is good, simply balsa too. The most brutall strop i have is a sheat of synthetic silk glued to a glass made base. Results are excelent, but really hard to work with it. Minor angle change and blade is damaged and even the silk sheat is really fragile. Today i work with a nanotechnology paper (selled on the plane model workshop), heated to a balsa wood base, cutted to the shape of a water stone (posibble to put it in the stone holder :-) ) with a diamond based compound. DMT diamond water spray 0.5 micron works pretty sweat as a final strop, easy to aplly. My working schedule with a strop is leather on the wooden base 10 micron diamond compound, leather on the wooden base with 7 micron diamond compound, nanopaper on the balsa base with 3 micron diamond compound, same at the 0.5 micron and final on clean horse cordovan razor strop. Best results for me.
Amazing. That was much faster than i thought possible. Great video. Thanks!!!
I am a BIG fan of stropping. I took my new Nexus knife and did a quick paper test and it has minimal use so far, so mostly factory edge, and it cuts clean. After 7 or 8 times on each side with a leather strop and green Enkay, it will effortlessly push cut cleanly on magazine paper. Thanks for the great info you put up here.
Dont know how found this channel..but this guy doing good work...keep it up mate👍
Just ordered the dalstrong set can't wait to see how they perform and just excited in general thanks for the videos keep the good work
How do you like your dalstrong stone's? I have their 1k and 6k stone and just replace them with suehiro stones since they felt very rough and dead feeling and not correctly rated with their grit
Great video. thanks for answering my question with this video. Now I shall learn to strop more on the leather strop that I bought from you and maybe buy and try out one of the demo ones that you are selling.
Recently got into Stropping my swords. Excellent for maintaining a scary sharp edge...
Have a go with the Tormek Honing/Stropping compound - it's graded at 6000 grit for their honing wheel on the machine which I have at home - but I work as a chef on yachts and often spend months away on various jobs. I carry a leather strop and a tube of that compound rather than a stone because it's lighter in my luggage - I have Dragon and Dalstrong knives and it does the job effortlessly yielding an amazing polish
Hi. I use Solvol Autosol metal polish on basswood . It gives excellent edge & shine. I let it dry before stropping. ATB.
Hi, little hint about using oil. Take a few drops of olive oil on a clean strop and rub it into the leather with your hands, they will help heat up the leather a bit. If you use a heat gun or hair dryer, use it on the leather. Now use your green compound and just rub it into the strop until you get it covered. Don't worry if it is not 100% covered. After a few times loading it up it will become covered. Hope this helps. Ray, Oklahoma
I haven’t tested the higher quality leather from your store yet, but:
The rolled buffalo for me is “the stuff of dreams.”
I used it loaded, raw, abused the heck out of the first one I purchased by literally stropping every knife in my drawer in one sitting, and it still looks fresh and feels amazing.
Great work man! Ryky, I was wondering if you've thought about doing a Yanagiba/Gyuto/Deba video comparison on different meats? Honestly, I can't seem to find many videos that compare the feeling of cutting meats with those knives and how they stack up against each other. It would be pretty cool to see you go through some meats or fish after a sharpening session.
I've been maintaining my edges with strops for the last several months with great results, but I never thought about stropping a completely dull knife. I might have to find something junky to dull. Great stuff, Ryky!
Its totally possible. Depends if the edge is apex or not how high in micron or low in grit you have to go. I mean you could go 10 micron it would get a non apex edge back in apex.
If your edge is in apex and just needs a freshening you might only need 1 and .5 micron compound.
I tried it with my Yanagiba and it worked very good. I am impressed!
Ryky I use Bark River compounds Black (3000 grit) Green (6000 grit) and White (12000 grit) They all work great. Easily available to you as they're made in the USA.
I imagine that once you get a good edge grind on a knife, stropping will bring back the edge. I was practicing on my Burrfection strop with my pocket knife over the weekend, and the stopping seemed to have a bigger impact on the sharpness than trying to sharpen traditionally.
Hi Ryky this very interesting video. Thank you
After the long wait they finally arived !! My Burrfection leather strops. With rolled buffalo and buffalo backs, i have been stropping with these for about one week now and i am super happy to have these great strops. Taking the micro burrs of with ease and pushcutting no problem. To take it up another notch, i am going to order a 1/2 and or a 1/4 diamond paste / spray. Will be interesting to see what more this can do for the maintenance of my edges. Thanks for these great strops ! keep it up ! and keep it raining !!!!
If you are talking about .5 and .25 micron it probably won't help that much in on going maintenance of your edge. As that is really low in micron. Probably need to start off with 1 micron then .5, and .25. Then you are talking months and months in between stones as long as their aren't chips etc in the edge.
Great, thanks for the tip ! i will try the 1 micron to start on, if i just get to ordering the sprays =)
Of course its really hard to go from micron to grit because grit on what stone and Japanese grit or american grit or shapton etc.
I guess I should have asked what grit stone you stop on? 1 micron is probably around 8k-11k. .5 micron is like 20k-30k range. My last stone is 5k. So thats why I then go to 1 micron and then finish on .5 micron.
Frequent stropping touchups work well with those microns for me. If its longer time between touchups you probably have to go higher micron like 3 to 5 micron. Thinking is longer time between touchups the more damage to edge the higher micron you need to bring it back. Thats why I give my knives a dozen or 2 strokes on each strop a week. Unless you are chipping your knife you can an extremely long time between full sharpening sessions. All that depends on cutting board material and materials being cut and how much use each knife is getting etc.
I get my stropping material from the guy at CKTG
www.chefknivestogo.com/strops.html
Love the sprays and emulsions. I typically use felt and nano cloth strops and skip the leather. Just personally preference. The cool thing about the emulsions is it can be applied directly to the stones. Amazing.
I have a coarse stop I use for sharpening. I mix bark river grey compound with the dust I collect from flattening an old Norton Translucent Arkansas Stone with a blue DMT diamond stone. It cuts fairly slowly...but it does definitely cut at the edge, even on higher HRC and supersteel blades.
The stone itself has the ability to pre-mirror polish edges when it's used dry. Wanting to harness that effect, I judged that the ultra fine powder would be stabilized by the compound. Luckily I wasn't wrong. It's stayed impregnated into the strop with only 1 need to add more in the 3 years since.
I mostly use it to gently remove burrs while adding a tiny but stable micro-bevel as my last sharpening step.
Saw a kitchen guy talking about stropping, and he used olive oil to help clean off the stropping compound. One down side to oil on leather is that it softens it. A bit of a problem if you are using saddle type thick leather for your strop. Check out some of the straight razor stropping and sharpening videos.
I have the same good experience with SG2 knifes on a strop. I think for knife maintenance on daily base stropping is great! I will also try it on my new Sukenari HAP40 Kiritsuke. Let's see how this will work. Stropping treat the knife with much more care (than stones) and is good for a long lasting life of the knife. I will only go to my stone, if I really have to...
great video! I've only been sharpening on stones up to 6k (no name Chinese 600, 1500, shapton glass 2k, suehiro cerax 6k). I will definitely look into stropping after this video!
The stropping world is just as complex as the whetstone world. You have diamond sprays, CBM and boron carbide emulsions that you can even apply directly to the whetstone for some advance techniques.
But everyone should be stropping unless you are a master sharpener.
Tried my first strop last year. It came loaded with a green compound. Later I added some of the block compound to the strop. It has not worked for me at all. Now there are gaps where the compound does not stick. I've tried adding a little mineral oil w/o success. I do not know what is going on--cheap compound?--but I have given up for now adding any compound. Most of my knives are not kitchen knives or high hardness HRC, so I have found a ceramic steel works well. I know you recommend a strop for 60 HRC or above, but you have stated that a good strop will work well on these knives without compound, albeit with perhaps more time involved.
Chosera 1000, Naniwa Snow White, Bovine strop with .125 micron diamond spray. GREAT mirror edge. SUPER clean. Brought 2 friend's knives with completely rolled edges back to shaving hair with the grain 😎 (not to mention all my own personal knives I sharpen weekly)
I have tried a grey compound that is made for stainless steel prep at about 320 grit in the past,experiment really.. It works but overall it makes more sense to just buy an equal corundum stone.Or even a soft arkansas stone to use as they are fairly cheap these days.Both will outlast the compound by a longshot in the long run.
Is Kramer vs. Victorinox coming soon? Really looking forward to that one.
I actually use a ground-down ceramic floor tile rip to take my burrs off... I'm thinking about putting a leather strip on the other side for stropping.
After about 3 weeks or so I will take my knives and strop them using regular leather and green chromium oxide compound. It brings the edge back to life just that quick. The compound I use is between 20,000 and 25,000 grit. I don't have to put my knives to my stones but about twice a year. And after sharpening by stones, including my 8000, I'll end up using my strop for that well polished and refined edge that makes the knife edge scary sharp. I'm glad to see that stropping is becoming part of your maintenance routine.
Great video thanks
Dude, I have often wondered this...Thanks!!!
You bet!
Looking forward to the future videos of compound vs stone. I use my king KDS 6000 whenever I feel the edge isn't super clean. Use it on Nexus 63 rockwell and Tojiro DP. Excellent results, quick, economically priced and I don't soak the 6000 at all. It's great for my needs (non professional restaurant worker).
I cleaned/rounded the spine on my nexus using KDS 1000, then 6000. Any reason I'd be inclined to buy the Atoma 400?
Stay sharp!
O and the mirror like finish from the KDS 6000 isn't for all, but to me it's like heaven. I highly recommend people get to a knife store and see their options, not to mention its good for local businesses and communities alike.
I wouldn't throw in a diamond plate unless you are using it to flatten/lap your whetstones. If you need a low grit stone stick to all whetstones. Going from a 400 diamond plate to the 1000 on your KDS would be a pain. Those diamond patterns take a lot of effort to get rid of.
Pro sharpeners when using diamond plates for speed usually have to switch to a corresponding low grit whetstone. So say 400 diamond they might go 320 whetstone to get rid of the diamond scratch pattern then proceed through their normal stone routine.
Nice demonstration. I'll get a couple of new strops.
I strop my kitchen knifes and EDC knifes every day I use them and almost never put them to a stone. I use the 2 Harold’s and Bark River white block compound.. About the only time I use the stones Is for friends and customers knives which usually are dull enough you cannot cut yourself with them. BTW ..what compound is that yellow compound that is on the rolled Buffalo strop I got from you recently? If I remember right it was 13,000 grit. Thxs.
lol I've done that before with the heat gun and mineral oil for putting compound on strops. Didn't work for me either lol. I just find that simple is best, and rubbing it on like a crayon then spreading it out with some oil. Leaves you with much less compound but it works way better and leaves a smoother surface. And hasn't decreased cutting performance at all either. I find it'll polish up an edge nicely like that. I've learned that with the block compounds you need to be able to see leather through the compound. If you can't its too much.
1mm? Well you've obviously worked out some tricks to apply it that I haven't. I'm sure its possible, I've seen some companies sell pre-loaded strops like that. I just can't get that to work for myself with similar block compound like what Ricky is using. It ended up uneven and horrible, and the knife would just end up scraping the compound off the leather and the compound would come up off the bevel onto the side of the blade and spoil the finish. It was a disaster lol. But if you can make it work thats great. Maybe you should share your tricks of the trade.
Ah, well there you go. Multiple applications. I was trying to do it all at once lol. I might give it a go next time I'm loading up a strop. I might use one of my junked ones first till I get it right.
Seems like you're having a debate with yourself stratocaster.
For weekly maintenance of knives that aren't chipped but merely dulled from the week of use, this demo of green then red compound looks great. Ryrky has also demoed the use of 3M lapping film as an alternative to whetstones; does anyone have any thoughts about using 3M lapping film (5 micron then 1 micron) versus compound on leather for weekly maintenance? The startup cost for the 3M film would be less than buying 2 leather strops and the compound, but would be as effective? Any advice would be appreciated!
You may like to try a black compound. It`s a coarser (3000 grit) compound . Great to bring back a dull knife.
I’m amazed 😮
what is your stropping compound and where to buy it please?
Ricky, I'm trying to make my own strop, I've purchased a few bits of leather. But your examples seem to be much thicker then what I can find. Do they have some backing material to them or are they just hide? Your's seem a good 5mm, what I can get is about 1.5-2mm max. Thank you!
hey @burrfection could you do a video on how to sharpen folding knives. Im curious about your technique with the smaller more awkward to hold blade.
I have a question, I have SUEHIRO RIKA 5000 should i use rather green or red compound? And another one, can I use KUROBARA TSUBAKI Hamono 100ml on strop or its strictly on knife?
Thank you very much, I really appreciate what you are doing 👍.
I use the Bark River and JRE Black Magic compound which is rated at 3000 grit. They dont call it black magic for nothing because if you can only have one compound and want to use mainly stropping for edge maintenance it black is a must! Fantastic for bringing back a dull edge back to a razor sharp working edge. Move to green which is 6000 grit if desired! -Knifeability
Already stopped by my local saddle shop got some leather and have 2 strops made. Not Buffalo hide just saddle grade leather.
first one was messed up by improper technique second one is going strong.
Question? Is it necessary to use an compound while stroping, and if not what are the added benefits?
I’ve just discovered your channel. Great videos! Question: In choosing stropping compounds for cooking knives, have you considered that the chrome used in the green compound can be toxic? Chrome oxide is a low toxicity form of the metal, but chrome (VI) is highly carcinogenic (see Erin Brokovitch) and is an impurity present in chrome oxide preparations. Knives should be washed well after stropping before food contact. As a precaution, I wouldn’t work with chrome based compound in my kitchen.
Edward Salinas… I've wondered about toxicity too, but just wash my knives after sharpening or stropping.
Nice video. I recommend you use Aluminum oxide(white compound 10~1 micron) and Chromium Oxide(Green compound 1~0.1 micron) Don't try to heat it up and all that DIY thous liquid compounds have special additives that make them into a liquid. Instead just rub it on the leather.
Hello Sir! I hope all is well. By the way i have a miyabi black and I would like to ask you for help on what’s the best way to sharpen it. Wet stone or stropping? Also what’s a good brand and what grit. Thank you so much.
Thanks.
Any idea about the longevity of the strops using them with compound as compared to w/o compound Ryky?
what's the name of that red compound? did he say Harolds's red?
I'm using a DIY strop made with a very old and quite worn belt and some no brand chinese compound, but to my surprise it works well cosidering the stuff im using, and you gave me the idea of using mineral oil to spread the compound better and to expose fresh compound, i dont have any expensive or high rockwell hardness knives but for a $20 dollar knife works nice but it does not do miracles, but hey it cost me like 3 dollars.
Honestly I would avoid all compounds with oil. Cross contamination risk is too high. Oil does not mix with whetstones.
Stick to diamond, CBN and Boron Carbide sprays/emulsions.
Mineral oil is used as a solvent for the polishing compound, it helps to spread the compound better in the leather strop, not for the stones, and wipe your blade between each use on different sharpening mediums if cross contamination is a problem. Just common sence.
I totally get it. I first started on the green crayon but quickly switched and never looked back.
A lot of 1st timer sharpeners come to this channel so its a lot easier if they just skip it. Especially if they are keeping all of their sharpening supplies together. Its very easy for a bad accident to happen.
But the diamond, CBN and boron sprays/emulsions are just vastly superior to the crayon compounds and pastes. So its easy enough just to skip them..
Im sure they work much better than those big blocks of wax compound but back to my fist point, for my cheap work oriented knives its just good enough, aside the fact that i bought a little block of compound and i had already some wood and the belt, i can't complain about the results given the money spent, like 3 dollars maybe. I use a double sided paddle strop and i keep it in a plastic bag, thats all, no risk of geting it dirty or contaminated.
Hi, can we use oil to lubricate whetstone instead of water?
Pls review all the masamoto ks series knifes
Dear Ricky,
I appreciate your videos and your explanations. I only use Japanese knives in my house-almost all super Aogami steel. I'm delighted with it. As for the compound for strops, I would like to ask you which one I can base myself on to obtain this 60000 grit you mentioned.
Thank you very much.
You should add a white steel #1 too, the sharpest of them all…but doesn’t hold sharpness as long as Aogami. I own both.
What’s the GRIT equivalent on the Green Enkay block?
Bought two of your strops; buffalo/acrylic and shell cordovan/carbon fiber, which two compounds would you consider the best for these two strops. Cook daily and needed a quick way to get my knives sharpened.
How are they working for you?
Question. Do you know what edge they put on that knife in the video? Thin edge, medium edge, or thick edge? I have looked at buying the 8.2 inch version but they JUST came back in stock and I’m not sure which edge they sharpened it to. So I’m not sure which edge to ask for it to be sharpened to when I order it, which is why I haven’t ordered it yet. I use the TEMO .5 micron diamond stropping compound on my buffalo leather (personally signed) RyKy made strop!! It works extremely well after I finish an edge on a Chosera 3000!!! Razor sharp! As for daily maintaince it works very well as well.
i asked them to simply send it factory sharpened, medium
Burrfection ok so a medium edge! That is what I honestly was thinking. And by medium I assume around a 15 degree each side. 8 degree each side I would assume is thin and 30 degrees each side would be thick side. I am about to order me one now with a medium edge. Was just waiting for the edge!! Seems to have some great retention. Also just ordered me a complete 25 piece set of nexus knives. I am very impressed with them along with the yaxell dragons! I own every dragon except the bread knife by choice. Keep up the great videos!
PS cutleryandmore has the fusions back in stock (i assume not for long)!!
Ricky, are you still maintaining your straight razors with your whetstones/strops? If so, will you show us what you do?
Your video piqued has my interest in straight razors because it shows that you don't need expensive high maintenance stones to get a razor sharp edge.
Thanks!
Jeff
Most stones after 6k-8k the price becomes huge. It is more cost efficient to simply get 5 or 6 strops with compound on them. I would stay with diamond, CBN or Boron Carbide sprays/emulsions. A lot easier to work with then the compound "Crayons".
This is for knives or razors. The low grit stones put the apex on the edge every grit after just refines that scratch pattern.
And these sprays you can get from 10 micron to something insane like .025 micron.
Came back to see if you posted a link for those compound.. 😔😓
Hey Ryky, I've been watching a lot of your videos here lately and have been interested in some of the Dalstrong Shogun series. I noticed that they are switching most of their knives to an AUS-10V steel from VG10. Have they sent you any of these new knives with the AUS-10V and I'm curious what your honest thoughts are on this.
Justin Horner: I’ve asked this question as well an am very curious to hear the answer. Just recently noticed a few virtually identical Dalstrong knockoffs labeled as vg10 on Amazon. I bet that may have something to do with the switch after getting a message back from customer service saying that the perceived quality of vg10 steel had gone down (according to them).
Their AUS 10V is supposed to be a bit tougher due to the added nickel in the alloy (according to Dalstrong) but I have nothing to compare it to. Waiting in anticipation as well 👍🏻
I dont know much about Dalstrong but VG10 is looked down on a lot in the knife world especially high end kitchen world. Not that there is anything wrong with the steel but most places especially the big knife retailers do not do a good job heat treating it. A lot of people avoid VG10 unless its certain small independent blacksmiths that put the time and effort into it. Its kind of the word of mouth thing basically Shun helped to give Vg10 a band name even if the steel itself doesn't deserve a bad name.
When buying a chef knife especially high end or a quality one. I wouldn't recommend steel being a primary reason to buy or avoid a knife. Unless you have so many knives you are just looking for a specific steel.
The most important aspects are the dimensions and the profile. Typically knives are 210mm or 240mm but unless they are huge retailers those numbers can be off as much as 20mm like when they are hand made. Then the profile of the knife is huge aspect. Some have higher heels. Flat spots, gentle curves, or sharp bellys. Some people like to rock cut and some people dont.
I would check the guys out over at CKTG (www.chefknivestogo.com) and their forums. They are extremely helpful and aren't really the arrogant knife guys that are in other forums. By reading the forum you really learn more about a knife then just the steel.
Like I hate knives with lots of belly. Doesn't matter if its $1000 knife made with super steel. I don't like the feel of it and I dont perform well with it. Everyone has their own tendencies so its a good thing to find out.
It is so satisfying 😍😍
I'm finding that my knives are coming duller off the green compound strop than they are after the ceramic hone. I'm assuming my angle is wrong, but I'm not really sure how to know since I've just started sharpening and use an fixed angle apex system. Any advice? I'm trying to sharpen a cutco 7" santoku with a hollow grind
@Jack Blade I've since learned how to hand sharpen, but the fact that it's 440A steel isn't a problem
I'm a chef and working in a busy restaurant means all our knives go through constant use. I am an advocate of stropping for maintaining the edge of a knife and I've found that stropping knives extends the periods between sharpenings by at least twice(meaning instead of sharpening knives every 2 or 3 weeks, one can sharpen knives once a month or so when stropping is used for edge maintenance).
Guiltaur… I'm a big fan of stropping, but I've wondered if it's realistic in a professional kitchen. I'm a home cook, but wondering if a pro would strop during a service, or only before or after?
Bradley Gong If knives are maintained properly, one should not have to strop during service. Actually, the only times a knife generally needs to be used during service is for finishing/garnishing dishes. The bulk of knife use takes place before or after service periods during prep duties.
Guiltaur… yes, good point. I guess my question is, if you felt the need while prepping, would you break out a strop, or do you only do it before or after? While I don't like them, steels take a couple swipes and a wipe, whereas stropping takes a little longer, the knife should be washed if stropped on compound, and the strop maybe put away (so it doesn't get wet).
Bradley Gong Properly maintained knives should not need stropping during regular use. A knife stopped before or after use should last a prep duty period. If a knife that is properly sharpened with bevel geometry appropriate for the blade design and material requires stropping or touching up with a honing instrument during prep work, there is a problem that lies with the knife or the user.
That being said, in a situation where a knife requires stropping during use, no one in a kitchen would break out a stropping paddle or belt and compound. One can easily strop using a honing ceramic rod without compound to bring an edge back in order. I've worked with older chefs who used newspaper for a stropping surface.
Guiltaur… yep, that all sounds good. While I think loaded strops work better, I didn't think they would be used in a professional environment.
Can u review a glestain?
1200 grit diamond paste, sharpens great
Leather on its own can bring back dull edge to sharpness? With compound, sure, but without? How is it possible? Was edge only curved?
Great Vid ! Stropping here we come !
To clean a grit surface, use a rubber block. They sell them to clean high quality sandpaper and sanding stones.
What kind of knife is that?
I'm wondering is it a real edge though or just a wire egde ? Because if you start cooking with a wire edge your blade will be dull again after a day of use.
My guess is that it would be less likely to ever become a wire edge via stropping, so it should be stronger.
Its a real edge. Even after his cut test the out of the box edge was still at apex. Stropping just removed enough material to bring the apex fully back into alignment. Got rid of the little fat.
If his compound was higher in micron aka lower in grit he could have brought a dull non apex edge back to apex.
should I get a buffalo leather strop or is tanned cowhide also good. I am looking for a good strop and any opinions/advice will help.
Both are fine. Buffalo is a bit more consistent when buying the right grade. Go with what you can afford or fine locally. Or see what i have made store.burrfection.com/collections/strops
Will stropping give me a better edge than my 8000 stone or is using the 8000 stone the same as using 8000 stropping compound? Is there a stropping vs stone video?
After more researching, I think Ricky's "Stropping vs Polishing Your Knife" video answers my question. I may buy a strop but I am happy with my 8000 whet stone for now
I would say the initial edge would be great after you hop off the stone/strop. However, a strop will only extend the time between sharpenings. So IMO it would be kind of redundant to see a strop vs stone comparison because you'll probably do amazing on both! (But I still want to see that video)
Plus with CBN emulsions they can be applied directly to your whetstone no strop needed. You can really achieve some high level sharpening techniques doing that.
Pastes and the crayon style compounds I have left those years ago and they seem pretty ancient now. At least in the kitchen world. Field strops, travel strops, or edc type of knives I know they still get a heavy work out.
But high end kitchen knives I would stick to diamond, boron carbide, or CBN emulsions/sprays and go felt or nano cloth strops and skip the leather entirely. Of course that is just what works best for me.
Wait so you're telling me that you put the emulsion straight on the whetstone? Wouldn't that be wasting the emulsion because after you use it once, you need to wash off the whetstone? I would personally prefer to have a completely separate strop.
Me personally no. Pro sharpeners and advanced hobbyists yes.The 2 biggest reasons they would do it is speed and and extreme high hardness super steels say like ZDP-189. That can go to 67-68 HRC.
So if you have normal stones even high quality ones it might do nothing. So they would add the CBN emulsion to the stone to actually cut the steel.
Or they are just going for speed because they have so many knives to get done. The emulsion on the stone can speed the process up by enhancing the cutting ability of the stone buy you still get the nice smooth whetstone scratch pattern. Without the need for say diamond plates.
Me I have 2 felt strops and 1 nano cloth strop. With 3 micron, 1 micron and .5 micron sprays. I think the 3 micron is diamond and the other 2 are boron sprays.
Didn't really think people would be made of money, but lo and behold, they do exist lol. I like to go cheap, so with my modified Spyderco sharpmaker I can't really do that lol. But it is nice to know that I have the option to
Got some Herold green and red pastes and loaded up a couple newly made leather strops… QUESTION: Does anyone else find the Herold pastes to feel sticky/grabby/waxy even after they've dried overnight?
After not enjoying the stickiness, I softened up the compound on the strop with mineral oil, then wiped off what came off easily, smoothed it out, and let it dry again. It was definitely less sticky and grabby, but the compound fairly quickly gets smooth and shiny and seems like *_it_* is getting polished. Anyone else have these experiences with the Herold?
Do you ever use knives for food preparation? I personally don't eat newspaper.
how come the compound is not in the description?
Buy a wide paper masking tape and stick it on a plank or elsewhere. Do it 2-3 layers to get a softer touch. Rub it with dry compound (do not dissolve or heat it). You won’t see your compound on it but when you start working your knife - black marks will appear and after a while all area will be completely black, but the knife will get shine and sharpness and there will be no mud on it (of course, you must prepare it properly on a stone beforehand if it was completely dull). At the end, you just peel the tape off and throw away. Save your time and money. Good luck!
This is gona change our lives
Yo man, can u just tell me where to buy the compound you use? 😅
burrfectionstore.com/collections/accessories
Can I use automotive Turtle Wax rubbing compound?
Don't use wax. If you want to make a cheap strop use some old denim loaded with Mother's mag polish
I just want to know if I should buy a strop for $10 or I should just stick with 8000 grit stone
Sarcalogos Tortolero… depending on the compound that you use, you might be working with a similar amount of abrasion, but stropping is more forgiving.
I’m curious to know if using stropping as your primary sharpening method would result in a longer lasting edge as compared to a whetstone. Because the leather should bend more than the surface of the whetstone, I imagine over time the resulting edge should be a little more convex which could help strengthen the edge and prevent it from rolling. Idk how much the slurry on a whetstone would contribute to this same effect.
Question: Do you think you could do a rope cut test with the same knife and both methods of edge maintenance?
Edges won't convex on a strop unless the leather is soft. Most rolled leather for stropping is quite firm. There is nothing wrong with a convex edge, I have convex or scandivex edges on a lot of my hunting/bushcraft knives but they serve a purpose. I'm not sure as to the performance in the kitchen if edges convex. For chopping it might be okay as convex edges chop well.
Buddha Mack : before I found this channel bought a few nicer knives and started sharpening on a whetstone I used a Worksharp thin belt sharpener that claimed its main advantage was the convex curvature of the edge formed by sharpening that way. It definitely had an edge (pun intended) over the other sharpening tools I had tried. The edge could be polished more and that razor sharp edge was workable for longer but didn’t retain razor sharpness for quite as long as some of the other methods. I don’t think the edge ever rolled on me though. I did however run into profiling issues with that method of sharpening, hence why I ended up switching to whetstones.
Even if you can’t see it with naked eye the leather will bend when you apply pressure in the first part of that lower grit stropping technique for resharpening purposes.
There are a lot of really cool SEM 1 micron scale closeup pictures, using different stones and stropping techniques on a wordpress I just found called “science of sharp” if you want to take a look 👍🏻
I'm definitely not a fan of all these sharpening systems out there. Unless you run a knife making business I cant see the point. Whetstones are easy and quick once you develop your technique. I have seen some of the microscope pics for whetstones but not for strops so I will check that out.
I'm sure that it would have some give in the leather but you don't need much pressure for stropping. It would more so on the belt strops that most use for cut throat razors.
Buddha Mack : yeah there are a lot of different ways to sharpen but no way is perfect. The belt sharpener was waaaay quicker than a whetstone but I ended up with bellies and troughs in my knives so it would cut stuff well where the blade contacted the board, but would leave a piece connecting them which rendered my knives almost useless for push cuts and chopping which are my two preferred cutting methods for food prep
Another cut test with this knife just using stropping would be a great comparison!
My guess is that the stropped edge would do better, maybe because there might be a slight convex, but more because with no burr (weaker metal) ever being raised, it seems like it would be a stronger edge.
Great
Try using a double boiler to melt the compound then add the oil, mix and pour in to some kind of container. I use a small mason jar. Let me know how it works for you. Keep in mind you boiler will not be usable for anything else after this.
what oil do you use?
When you use different stropping compounds i guess you need to have a separate strop for each then huh?
Correct. I usually have 3 strops with different levels of compounds. But others have 6 or more.
Yeah, you can clean the old compound off but it's best to re-load it with the same stuff
I got metal Polish and put on basic cardboard let it dry. Has a 10 to 20.000 grit
The tables have turned.
I just got my stropping blocks that I purchased from you. I have yet to get my knives that razor sharp.
Have you tested stropping on skin? I mean your own skin. Like your arm?
i don't have thick skin
@@Burrfection Not sure it needs to be thick, just slip across the edge nicely.....
Sorry I'm not a native speaker, could someone explain the word stropping? Is it like a wet stone, without water? And what does the compound do, if you not even need to let it dry first?
oh0stv… stropping is using *_very light_* edge trailing strokes on leather mounted on a stiff material like wood or glass. Ryky sells some through his Etsy store, and has other helpful videos on stropping.
Honing compound can be applied to the leather to add abrasion. I have different strops loaded with different compounds. It is also useful to finish oh bare leather, as that has a very slight amount of naturally abrasive silicates.
It's definitely better to let the compound dry first!
I was just asking Google ans then... Ryky answers!!! Yahooo
It would be good to know your thoughts on how to identify good and bad leather, and what are the consequences of using bad leather for stropping. I'm now obsessed about learning knife sharpening, thanks a lot!
Robin Chew… soft leather (or too much pressure) has the possibility of rounding your edge by curling around it. It sounds like Ryky is dropping the latigo because it absorbs too much of compound.
Thanks for the response. I ended up buying a cheapo 26AUD strop. One big disadvantage is the weight of the wood, it won't stay in place, so it's not fun to strop on, and probably an accident waiting to happen. So I glued the strop onto a brick and it's all good now. The leather looks more furry than leathery, but it's the compound that does the job, and I'm able to get a satisfactory sharp edge on the knife, but not slice-in-midair sharpness.
Robin Chew… I put a layer of skid proof material (rubbery) on the table under my strop. Or, hardware stores sell small adhesive rubber feet that you can stick to the bottom of your strop (like Ryky's begun doing). But gluing to a brick will work too! 😆
When I make my strops, I tend to make the ones I'm going to load with compound smooth side up. I do have one that I bought that is double sided, and I prefer stropping on it on the fuzzy side with no compound. But yes, typically you're primarily interested in the compound.
What compound are you using?
The most important question for me is how does stropping changes the durability of the edge
it should actually enhance the durability by increasing the polish giving a smoother cut. Plus there is generally less wear on the knives than you would get running through a full series of stones.
Kurt Forbes I read a lot about leather decreasing edge retention and the more corse the stone the better is the edge retention and some stones are better for it than others
Using a steel yes I can see that but honing does remove the weaker metal it is not just bending it back and forth. www.knifeplanet.net/the-riddle-of-steel-edge-retention/ Is probably what you are thinking.
I have a camping knife that does everything from spitting wood to opening cans, I haven't noticed a difference in edge retention between stropping or sharpening before a trip. However after opening about 5 cans between stropping the blade gets to jagged for the strop. I don't have a stone large enough for my chief knifes so I just strop them.
I would recommend going with Diamond, CBN, or Boron Carbide sprays/emulsions over the "crayon" style compound especially when anything is being mixed with oil. The cross contamination risk is to great. Oil does not mix with your whetstones. So if you have $300 in whetstones a little oil will destroy those stones.
Especially when you are doing a full sharpening routine from stone to strop in the same session. Don't risk cross contamination with any compound you need oil for.
It's very difficult to imagine ruining a whetstone by going from a strop with a slight amount of mineral oil on it back to the coarser whetstone, especially not someone like Ryky. To do so would be a brain fart of the highest magnitude and highly unlikely.
The point is always "Best practice". Many beginners don't know better and keep all of their supplies in a box together. Then 1 unforeseen accident causes the death of stones. Or they are messy or whatever. A million different things could happen. And it needs to be pointed out to those beginners.
All of the high end emulsions diamond, cbn, boron carbide are all water based for a reason and come in spray form. 2 little sprays last for dozens of knives.
I use to use the chromium oxide "Green Bar" myself but that was years and years ago. Then switched to diamond pastes and about 5 years ago when the emulsions/sprays became so popular switched and never looked back.
I don't find it surprising, grit is the key and that method is already used on wheels. I also don't think that leather type or quality have any effect with such a layer of compound (at the beginning, leather strops are made to be used without compound).
Moreover, balsa wood is known to work well as compound's base, so I think we could have a similar result with this cheap material.
Maybe we could also ask the question of the true state of the knife before stropping it. A knife's edge is really dull when it can't be straightened and I'm not sure that it's the case after the rope cut test (espacially given it's hardness and if the knife was already well sharpened before). So I'm skeptical on the fact that you have sharpened this knife and not just straightened and polished it's cutting edge.
I hope that you will make your future comparisons by dulling the knife on a whetstone beforehand as you used to do.
His compound was too high to apex the edge. He brought the edge back to life/freshened it up. Because even after the rope cut test the edge was still apexed.
If not he would have needed lower compound. Its still possible to apex an edge with compound and strop only but it would be high micron or low grit/ Most compounds are in micron not grits at least the high quality sprays/emulsions not the crayon style.
Links for stropes are not working or format is wrong
anynone know what knife that is?
akazawa is the brand used by a spot called yanagiknife in brooklyn ny
IMHO a strop can never replace a stone..but I will say however, a strop can and should absolutely replace a steel.. I know most people with in depth knowledge of sharpening would agree. I have seen, time and time again, even when properly used, the damage, uneven wear and premature wear that a steel can do to a blade is horrible.
I exclusively use a custom made plain strop in my kitchen for touch up.. it works the best and keeps the edge even for much longer in between a honing with a stone.
I have to agree 100 %. I've tried steels before and do strop every edge as the finally step. Steels are little more than files and remove far to much metal I believe. Plus stones are cheap enough,even diamonds can be had fairly reasonable anymore for use on the real highend harder wear resistant steels these days.