# Stropping recommendations?



## David Tanner (Apr 11, 2021)

Hello,

I am just starting out on a more active sharpening, honing and stropping regimen for my kitchen knives. I have knives of average quality, mostly Sabatier and Victorinox with some cheaper high-carbon stainless knives for the kids.

I just invested in a Work Sharp Ken Onion sharpener with the Blade Grinding Attachment. This is after years of grinding away too much steel on an old Chef's Choice 130. I upgraded my stock honing steel to a new 14" Dexter-Russell Butcher Steel and I'm looking to add a fine honing steel and possibly a very fine ceramic honing rod to my lineup.

I'm intrigued by what I hear about stropping as a best-practice daily edge maintenance routine. I ordered a paddle strop from Amazon along with some compound but I was very unimpressed with it, especially the compound. I think the paddle is too short for longer culinary knives and the compound, especially the white one, seems really poor. It coats the leather and crumbles away rather than suffusing it.

What brands of stropping compound are recommended for sharpening ordinary kitchen knives? There doesn't seem to be any standard for particle size or even for colors. I read somewhere that the progression from coarse to fine is supposed to go "black, white, red, green," but this doesn't seem to be universally true.

Are Bark River bars respected as stropping compounds go? They seem to be widely mentioned on the internet sites where stropping is talked about.


----------



## brianshaw (Dec 18, 2010)

I strop razors for shaving. No need for kitchen knives. A ceramic hone or smooth steel is better for a quick touch up between sharpening. For a somewhat coarser steel, the f. dick multicut can’t be beat. Pricey but effective.


----------



## mike9 (Jul 13, 2012)

You can strop on cardboard and finish on inky newspaper. Both have a certain clay content to them and the ink makes a good polish. I like the dividers that come in wine cases it lasts a long time. Chromium oxide is good stropping medium too, but it costs money where as paper products are free. If it's good enough for Murray Carter it's good enough for me.


----------



## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Corrugated cardboard is less desirable for stropping, you tend to get some uneven pressure and angles. It works, but not as well.


----------



## mike9 (Jul 13, 2012)

That's why I like the dividers, they are flat and free. You can also treat them with compound as well, but I don't find that necessary. To be honest I have a lot of stropping items and I use them on different knives that do different tasks, but at the end of the day chipboard (flat cardboard) and news paper are my go to. Knives like my Suji and fish knives get the deluxe treatment, but boning knives and field knives rarely go past 1k on the stones. My Gyutos, pettys and parings go to 6k then strop


----------



## eiron (Nov 29, 2012)

Hi David, I'd say that if you're just transitioning over to a nicer sharpener and trying out stropping, keep it relatively simple and get some green CrO compound. I bought a Formax green block and it works amazingly well. Besides the waxiness of your compound, the face of your strop might play a factor in compound retention. I use 2 strops that are both smooth, and the Formax sticks well to the one with compound. A strop with split-faced leather might hold the compound better?


----------



## Cief Lonwind of the North (Jun 7, 2021)

What about harp. the stropping belt on your worksharp? I would think that it would do a great job. . Another option is 8000 grit emery cloth. on a rubber pad. A little water, and pushing the cutting edge as the trailing edge will produce the convex edge, and polish you're loo king for. I used Emory cloth to polish metal at Lockheed, with a rubber backing, and to polish fiber optics before terminating at me next place of employment. We could g get the cloth as high as 12000 grit, insuring minimum db loss at the termination. I took a few squares of the paper/cloth home when it was too used up at work, and tried them on an old, high carbon steel butcher's knife. The result was a very sharp, convex edge. So, you have many options, and just need to find the one that best suits you.

Seeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North


----------



## JoeVance (Jun 23, 2021)

hm...


----------

