Bench Strops for J knives

A few gents have asked about maintaining their Japanese knives. The Japanese knives in a home environment can go a very long time with out honing, with the correct cutting board ( more on that later) of course.

I use a series of bench Strops-

Jim you have all the good toys!

I too am a bench hone guy, my choice being textured leather with diamond spray followed by smooth leather and chromium oxide. I choose the diamond for most everything except sushi knives.

So gentlemen for the novice, you recommend using the bench strops to get accustomed to maintaining your knives before purchasing the whet stones?

Dave do you sell the strops in sets (i.e. like the one you have mentioned, textured and smooth with diamond spray??)

pauls51 said:

So gentlemen for the novice, you recommend using the bench strops to get accustomed to maintaining your knives before purchasing the whet stones?

Dave do you sell the strops in sets (i.e. like the one you have mentioned, textured and smooth with diamond spray??)

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First stropping your knives and keeping them sharp is what we're advocating. They will eventually need sharpening and then the choice to do it yourself or send it off comes into play. The strop will always be a relevant tool though since you can always (and should) use it to keep an edge alive since it doesn't remove any measurable amount of material and it can be used to finish off the sharpening process.

I do not have kits available. There's a couple of reasons for this mostly due to limited availability of the diamond spray more than anything really. On the smooth leather issue I can obtain these as well but don't have them as a stock item since the great majority of people I deal with benefit from the textured leather pad instead.

Dave and Jim: For my straight razor I set up 2 pasted bench strops. Both are balsa mounted on a piece of flat oak. One is pasted with Chromium Oxide and the other has a finer diamond paste (I don't remember the exact size off the top of my head, but it is finer than the green). Would these work for knives too, or does it need to be leather?

Jim, your rig keeps getting better and better. I see you picked up the diamond spray. I haven't tried it on knives yet, but man-o-manischewitz does it work on razors.

stobes21 said:

Dave and Jim: For my straight razor I set up 2 pasted bench strops. Both are balsa mounted on a piece of flat oak. One is pasted with Chromium Oxide and the other has a finer diamond paste (I don't remember the exact size off the top of my head, but it is finer than the green). Would these work for knives too, or does it need to be leather?

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You certainly can use your balsa strops for your knives. The chromium oxide will provide a slicker keener edge while the diamond will provide bite and slight aggressiveness. There's not much difference in chromium oxides but a lot of difference in diamond sprays. They'll work though, some just more effective than others is all.

ouch said:

Jim, your rig keeps getting better and better. I see you picked up the diamond spray. I haven't tried it on knives yet, but man-o-manischewitz does it work on razors.

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Hi Jay, I think that you may be the first person to provide feedback on the Dupont spray for razor use. I keep meaning to try it on my own razors but I'm scared to.

How's the shave compared to CrO?

ouch said:

Jim, your rig keeps getting better and better. I see you picked up the diamond spray. I haven't tried it on knives yet, but man-o-manischewitz does it work on razors.

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The diamond spray is the bees knees for a good knife!

Dave was good enough to set me up with the topping materials to fabricate the bench strops.

DaveMartell said:

Hi Jay, I think that you may be the first person to provide feedback on the Dupont spray for razor use. I keep meaning to try it on my own razors but I'm scared to.

How's the shave compared to CrO?

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I've been reluctant to report on this for fear of appearing even nuttier than usual. Logic would dictate progressing from coarser to finer grit, but a razor's edge should be about smoothness as much as anything. Whether I go with stones up to 12K or use a coticule (which is slowly beginning to supplant all of my finer stones), my finishing routine is counterintuitive:

1. 0.25 diamond spray on a cowhide paddle
2. 0.50 CrOx on a cowhide paddle

The diamonds get the edge screaming sharp, no doubt, but the CrOx seems to tame the aggressive "toothiness" of the diamond alone. I should also mention that one should be very careful applying the diamond spray (go easy!) and should ensure that the leather is firmly affixed to the bench strop (don't ask). You want to avoid any bubbling or irregularities on the surface of the leather.

Lots of ways to skin the proverbial cat, but this has been working for me.

Jay, that actually makes perfect sense to me and it's exactly what I would try (and will the next time) when I finish honing my straights. I always like to finish with CrO on leather but the diamond might be just the ticket before that. The size of the micron particles is just a number in my eyes, it's how the stuff works and where it's used in progression that matters.

Thanks for your feedback!

Jay and Dave - Jay's experience with the 25 micron diamond and CrOx is consistent with that reported by others - diamond gets the blade very sharp, but can be harsh and the CrOx produces a smoother edge.

So, what exactly do we need? Just a paddle strop or what you have on your website, Dave, and .25 micron diamond spray? Are we stropping this the same way we would a straight razor? Do we need to use diamond spray every time or do we just use leather (like a straight)?

To get this straight, Japanese knives are not steeled, but stropped, correct?

Suzuki said:

Jay and Dave - Jay's experience with the 25 micron diamond and CrOx is consistent with that reported by others - diamond gets the blade very sharp, but can be harsh and the CrOx produces a smoother edge.

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Thanks for the info.

mretzloff said:

So, what exactly do we need? Just a paddle strop or what you have on your website, Dave, and .25 micron diamond spray?

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You can use any type of strop, it doesn't have to be the one I sell and if you already have something you'd be best served to try that first. I prefer what I sell because that's what I use myself in my business but it doesn't mean that's the only one that will work. I hope I'm making that point clear to everyone.

mretzloff said:

Are we stropping this the same way we would a straight razor?

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You can't strop a knife and razor the exact same way since the razor has a built in angle guide that also serves to aid in keeping the leather from rolling over the edge where the knife has nothing like this. On a knife you have a couple of more rules to follow or maybe just different rules to follow really.

On both tools you draw an edge trailing stroke. With a knife you first have to find the angle. You take the knife to the far end of the strop and lay it flat on the surface, then you lift the spine while ever so gently pushing the knife away from you at the same time. When the edge just barely bites into the leather you have found the angle - now raise it a hair (like 1 deg) and you're set. Now holding this angle slowly and controlled draw the knife back towards you (edge trailing) while maintaining this angle (no downward pressure required) and when you get to the end of the strop - STOP - now lay the blade back down on the strop and THEN raise the knife off of the strop. The idea of this crazy move is to reduce the whip at the end of the stroke that everyone seems to want to do. The whip will roll the edge and you'll have to sharpen the knife again - not good.

mretzloff said:

Do we need to use diamond spray every time or do we just use leather (like a straight)?

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Some, but not many, people finish stropping a knife on unloaded leather. I personally find this does nothing at all (unlike a straight) so my preference is to always use leather loaded with a compound.

mretzloff said:

To get this straight, Japanese knives are not steeled, but stropped, correct?

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Technically Japanese do not strop knives, the touch them up on a fine polishing stone as needed. In the west many of us have adopted the use of strops for ease of use as well as increased performance to compensate for our somewhat poor knife skills and food types being cooked.

Neither culture uses steels on these knives though.

Dave,

Are there any books, dvds, youtube vids that you recommend newbys watch before they take the knife to their stones/strops??

Many thanks again for the wealth of knowledge that you have shared with us!

pauls51 said:

Dave,

Are there any books, dvds, youtube vids that you recommend newbys watch before they take the knife to their stones/strops??

Many thanks again for the wealth of knowledge that you have shared with us!

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There's a ton of YouTube videos but 99% of them are incorrect in so many ways that you'd be better off watching yourself in the mirror for instruction.

You're welcome and it's really my pleasure. If you have any questions please ask.

DaveMartell said:

Technically Japanese do not strop knives, the touch them up on a fine polishing stone as needed. In the west many of us have adopted the use of strops for ease of use as well as increased performance to compensate for our somewhat poor knife skills and food types being cooked.

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If you use a touchup stone, would the knife function like a straight razor, in the sense that you will not have to have it sharpened again, unless you drop it, bang it against a faucet, etc.? Can "straight razor" touchup stones, such as the Chinese one or a Belgian coticule, be used for kitchen knives?

Thank you for all the knowledge you have shared. Your time and effort are greatly appreciated

mretzloff said:

If you use a touchup stone, would the knife function like a straight razor, in the sense that you will not have to have it sharpened again, unless you drop it, bang it against a faucet, etc.? Can "straight razor" touchup stones, such as the Chinese one or a Belgian coticule, be used for kitchen knives?

Thank you for all the knowledge you have shared. Your time and effort are greatly appreciated

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In theory - yes - in practice not so much. A knife's edge can be kept alive through stropping for some time but it will go dull. A knife is asked to do a lot when you think about it, the conditions in which it works are harsh and work to round and chip at the edge. Between edge wear and fatigue the strop will eventually become less and less effective and a new edge will need to be created through raising a burr and removing some steel. It's the necessary evil.