

Stropping is the final stage in sharpening your edge.

Everyone knows they’re meant to do it, some have a belt, and many are doing it incorrectly. Stropping is one of the most romanticized aspects of the sharpening process. Thus, strops can be a better alternative than a finer-grained grinding stone in some instances. The tearing is replaced with a smooth slice when you strop such a knife. This also happens with cutting utensils that have already been sharpened. When slicing a piece of paper with a non-stropped knife, you will frequently observe that the blade catches and shreds the paper.

Thus, stropped knife is also known as a “mirror-edge.” Many people connect stropping with classic razors, benefiting outdoor knives, pocket knives, and kitchen knives. Stripping also has an aesthetic goal: it cuts sparkle like a mirror. Stropping eliminates the cut’s final flaws, and as a result, the sharpness has increased. When you start stropping, you will notice an improvement depending on the steel grade and the blade’s hardness. When it comes to Japanese whetstones, the best stropping you need is refining to at least 5000 grains before beginning stropping. A prerequisite is that you have sharpened the knife ahead of time. It may be tough to imagine, but sharpening a knife using a leather strop will result in a substantially sharper cut. Typically, this is done using a leather strap and is usually applied to a hard surface. Stropping is the practice of buffing the edge of a sharp knife.
