sharpening joy

[Baggy]

I have been sharpening all my spoon and other curved blades with push sticks (wet and dry)

then I moved onto the stropping also with push sticks and starkie sharp

Then a revelation, the final strop with the fine stropping compound that I got from Nick Westerman..... and then pop.... blimey!!! I can shave my beard. The blades are the sharpest that they have ever been.

No connection with Nic other than as a customer, the compound is here
http://www.nicwestermann.co.uk/sharpening/cat_9.html

Very highly recommended

 

[Harvestman]

Brilliant! Well done, I have yet to achieve that level of sharpness.

I have to say that for a moment when I read your first line I thought you had spent all day sharpening your spoons

 

[Baggy]

Hiya

Brilliant! Well done, I have yet to achieve that level of sharpness.

The waterstones (ice bear) got me almost there but the final strop with the fine compound made the final difference

I have to say that for a moment when I read your first line I thought you had spent all day sharpening your spoons

Now there is an idea, I was running out of things to sharpen.

 

[2trapper]

I never heard about stropping compound. How does it work?

 

[salad]

I never heard about stropping compound. How does it work?

Its just a very fine abrasive compound , which finishes the edge and helps to get rid of the micro burr that can happen during sharpening . So it basically means you have a finer and longer lasting edge.

There are plenty of household cleaning products that are also slightly abrasive that you can experiment with , for example in the UK there is a kitchen cleaner called Jiff(it a cream kitchen/bathroom cleaner) which is slightly abrasive. I would expect you have the same kind of stuff in Italy
Try putting some of that on an old leather belt and watch you stropping speed up with better results .

Or you can spend a small amount of money and buy some professional stropping compound like the OP is talking about, there are plenty of different stopping compounds available for you to choose from.
The stropping compound I have been using for a few years is called Tormek it works well for me although I would be interested to try the compound the OP is talking about as I have heard it is meant to be very good (its also known as smuff poo)

 

[abominable_scouse_monster]

This is a thought but has any one tried using tooth paste as a abrasive / stropping compound? Some of the more aggressive tooth cleaning stuff would work quite well I think.

 

[2trapper]

Thanks a lot. I have a very old belt and I'd like to use it for stropping for my flexcut carving knife. Probably I add also some professional stropping compound

 

[Baggy]

Thanks a lot. I have a very old belt and I'd like to use it for stropping for my flexcut carving knife. Probably I add also some professional stropping compound

I am not sure that I would use a belt for a small blade as the blade could sink into the leather and round off the cutting edge.
For smaller blades I would use thin leather on a hardwood or other hard surface.

 

[nic.]

Hi Mark- Its pleasing to hear that you can notice the difference between the fine ( white) compound and the blue / smurf poo . I used to think that there wasn't really much difference between compounds and that all the different colours were just marketing. However last yeat when I was talking on the phone to my supplier they were raving about this new compound and sent me a sample down. It only took one use of it to convince me that it gave a far surperior edge to my previous finishing compound ( which itself used to give a slightly better edge than blue) Although stropping with two compounds sounds longwinded and complicated it really isnt- I do it when finishing blades proffesionally because it is the fastest way for me to get the edge I require. Plus as long as you follow the little and often approach to sharpening you can touch up and edge just with the fine for a long time before you need to go back to stones/ hones.

As Mark says the real probelm with stropping is too soft a strop- this will round the edge very quickly and mean you need to go back to a stone much more often.

 

[Elen Sentier]

Very good thread, thanks. I need to learn all this and to practice! Somebody sent me some sharpening compound for Yule but not opened yet, will give it a looksee today and see what I've got. I've got an ancient Endicot strop (+ Dad's Endicot razor) as well as the new strop that came with the compound so my knives may get a sharpening later. Hopefully not a blunting !!!

 

[Robbi]

Have a look at these little strops that i do, thin leather on Oak, ideal for the smaller blades although i do use mine an "full size" blades.

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=100813&highlight

 

[Baggy]

Have a look at these little strops that i do, thin leather on Oak, ideal for the smaller blades although i do use mine an "full size" blades.

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=100813&highlight

That would also be useful for push stropping spoon knife blades, I have a similar one but 200mm long.

 

[Baggy]

Hi Nic

I have just had a few days in the woods felling and clearing, during the evening some carving etc was done.

I saw a couple of your shrink pot blades in use and the new owner (xmas present) was over the moon with them.
Maybe the Baigent shrink pot blade

My favorite carver/greenwood worker had one of your clip point carvers and was raving about how useful it is and how well it is holding it's edge.
He will be a customer for one of your adzes I suspect

My new carving blade is just what I wanted, TVM, so much better than the Mora 106 and it holds it's edge much better, I will be selling the 106 and the 120.

 

[robin wood]

polishing an edge with a good fine stropping compound really does wonders for cutting ability but also makes the edge last longer. I have always got on very well with autosol metal polish which is available from most DIY stores of automotive places eg Halfords B&Q, cuts very fast and has very consistent and small particle size.

 

[Baggy]

Hi Robin, autosol is very good but if you are ham fisted like I am it is very, very messy :-(

 

[Baggy]

I have been sharpening old chisels and I would say that the fine compound gets the blades sharper than autosol. A fine difference but the tools where the fine compound was used were SHAAAAARP

Which probably explains why Nic has developed a reputation for exceptionally sharp blades. I saw a bunch of very, very experienced bodgers using new (xmas pressies) tools for carving over the last few days and the first comment was alway how sharp Nics blades are.

I am probably able to bore for England talking about sharpening but it does make a huge difference to carving.