I must say I love how you've improved your testing methodologies. You cannot find this information anywhere else. Good job!

@joraver

5 жыл бұрын

Hear hear!

@shhon3

5 жыл бұрын

Amen!!!

Absolutely appreciate all the work that went into this! Thank you very much for all the information. Just the same, thank you for providing it in such an easy to follow and efficient format.

Excellent, thank you. It answered a question I was wondering about for a long time. Thanks for all your hard work.

I often find myself playing your videos while at the sharpening bench. Thank you for all of the knowledge that you pass on.

Very enlightening experiment. The only sharpening channel which presented results are based on minimally measured and, therefore, reliable data. Good job. Thank you man!

Actually a very informative video as I had previously not seen much use for a strop tbh, And i like the fact it's actually based off of some data! top stuff

Hats off to your patience, dedication, and mastery! Much respect!

Love your videos Ricky. Thanks so much!

Ricky, thanks for all the info you provide on your videos. I like all of them. Lot of info on them. Thanks.

Ryke, I think what’s happening is that when coming off the stone the micro serrations on the apex are still intact giving you a higher degree of sharpness and more longevity. Edges sharpened at lower grits actually last longer because the “teeth” are more pronounced giving it more bite. If you’ve ever used an over polished knife on tomato skin, it will glide unless you apply more pressure because there are no teeth to bite into the skin. It makes sense you were getting diminishing results coming off the stone to the strop because you were polishing away those micro serrations. Same goes for touching up with a strop. Burnishing and rounding the apex is an unfortunate but inevitable consequence. A good example of of what I’m talking about is a lot of sushi chefs prefer Japanese natural stones for their polishing stone. J-nats have much less uniform abrasive particles than synthetics that leave a staggered tooth pattern on the apex. It’s preferred because those teeth are needed to cut flesh but require polish as well to make the cut more uniform. I hope that makes sense. Keep up the good work! Thanks for doing all the dirty work for us lol

@brianwilliams7401

5 жыл бұрын

I

@johnieblaze4079

5 жыл бұрын

Clarify me this cause I did not get it "J-nats have much less uniform abrasive particles than synthetics that leave a staggered tooth pattern on the apex" You meant that naturals leave ore uniform micro serrations than synthetics?

@jsk8drummer

5 жыл бұрын

This is the opposite of what I've heard from a lot of people. I've been told several times that a good polish will result in better edge retention. And this video seems to back that up. But what you are saying also makes sense. So now I'm confused.

Really like the video and the background. Very nice!!!

Thank you for your time Rick

This is fantastic work. Thanks for the video.

I'm a newbie to sharpening my own knives, and this video summed up what I need to get. Thank you!

@Burrfection

5 жыл бұрын

welcome.

@Talador12

7 ай бұрын

Same

Fantastic video! Thank you

glad there are numbers to back up my findings. i notice the same thing in straight razors, where strops will bring the knife back to razor sharpness, but it is never as good as whetstone+strop. this probably has to do with a whetstone removes enough material to give a new edge every time, where a strop only realigns the edge. to put it simply, a strop extends the life of the current edge via edge realignment, a whetstone puts a new edge but there is always slight burr formation no matter the grit, and strop+whetstone puts a new edge and and gets rid of the burr

Really like that data and your dedication to trying to be as objective as you can! Great content, super interesting!

Cool video. I just bought a strop to complement my sharping equip. I am quite happy with that. I helps allot to service my knife on a daily base.

Excellent! Thank you.

@Burrfection

4 жыл бұрын

You are welcome!

Awesome data sharing. Learned a lot.

Very thorough presentation with good data. Very interesting video. Thank you.

Great video!

Awesome testing dude, thanks for putting in the work. I might check your Etsy store for some strop leather.

Stroping regularly will very much lessen the time you need on a stone. Unless you have chunks out of your blade a strop will make it razor sharp and keep it there longer if you do it on a regular basis. Nice vid Rikki.

very informative, thank you

This one got me subscribing 💰 Well done, mate, excellent content ✅

@Burrfection

2 ай бұрын

welcome and thank you

Thanks for putting in this effort. Informative. I bought that exact rolled buffalo strop from you and just used it. In fact I bought a demo I think...could be this one. LOL

What about putting the polishing paste on the strop vs polishing stone? Thanks again for another informative vid!

Good video! Would love to see something like this with lapping film. Greg

Great video, thank you. Have you ever tried Lamson knives? I'm curious how an American forged knife measures up. Any plans to review one? Thanks again!

Thank you for your video's keep them up! I have a Zwilling Pure, Zwilling Stylus, and Global Cromova. Which Whetstone do you recommend for sharpening my knives.

Thank you!

Hi Ryky! Just wanna say I've been binge watching your channel. Love your vids, love your commentary. I also wanna say that I loved the last video you did without commentary! Maybe it's weird but I loved just having something passive to listen to while I work - kind of ASMR-ish i guess xD

Excellent experiment! invaluable data not available anywhere Thank you Ricky

That''s what I call scientific honing. "We are literally splitting hairs" I love it!

Finishing a sharpening with stroping is the ideal way to put that polished edge on your knives. I use the green sharpal compound on my strop. This is ideal for polishing a razor sharp edge. Happy sharpening!

Beautiful.. Thanx

Thank you so much for collecting this data in such a scientific manner. I never knew such a measuring device exists. From your data, my conclusion is wetstone sharpening alone is consistent, whereas strop+compound alone can get pretty close in short term, but can get progressively worse over time (with abuse like cutting rope). But a strop after a stone can get you an even better edge than stone alone.

Hi Ricky thats better another informative video can you please give me an idea how to apply the dmt disarray to my new strop you sent me and how long till I need to reapply the spray again . Kind Regards Dean from Oz

Super video!!! What about strop + compound?? That is very interesting as I make my own strops and are considering the benefit of the grit paste on the strop... what grid level of compound can improve the sharpness?? And to what degree As I love just using the strop quickly instead of stone and water fun 😃😃❤️❤️😍😍

Great summary. Resolves for me that yes, I am going to get something in the range of an 8000 - 10000 polishing stone. Already have a strop. I will also study how to use a knife properly ... so that I do not ... cut ... myself. (I want a very sharp knife for trimming beef, at home. Cutting vegetables, any ordinary sharp will do fine.)

Both stropping and polishing are the same important if you want to have a real razor sharp knife which can easy cut hair. I tried with a white steel knife and a Shun VG10 knife using Cerax 320, Naniwa 1200, King 6000 and Kitayama 8000. After the #8000, both knifes could cut hair but, after stropping, the blades were cutting hair very smoothly.

4 hours to shoot and probably many hours of edit too. thanks for the great work Ryky

Could you review some cheap sub $30 combination polishing stones like the bearmoo..? and sharp pebble 3000/8000 combination stones?

Question. HI riki, i have been following your channel from a long time. You make awesome videos. I have made my mind to buy a gyuto with 130$ budget. I was looking at miyabi fusion morimoto edition and yoshihiro vg 10 16 layer gyuto. 8 inch. I want youse have a knife which cuts through onions like butter. Which means a thinner blade. Can you please tell me which one is better? For the onion things... i want to chop it down in half from top to bottom. Then lay one half on the board and make horizontal cuts in it for dicing. Do you thing yoshishiro being a thicker knife will be able to do it? And thanks in advance.

The best stropping compounds are machine polishing compounds like Menzerna p126. It is hard and dry so you have a tough time getting it to bed into the strop but it is very high purity and concentration of super fine abbrasive

Can you please make a full guide on sharpening knives ???

I saw a diamond honing rod. Are they any good for sharpening?

Well, had not checked this one out yet, but I have been getting into stropping, mostly for my wood shop, but need this for my kitchen knives. The sharpening stones are for creating an edge. The finest stone I have used is 15000 grit. I haven't tried a 30,000 grit stone yet, but do have one. I am cursed or blessed, as one who HAS to experiment.... As far as I can tell, all of the stones, diamond or wet stones, will leave a wire burr, and this is true with even lightest hand pressure. The stropping is for removing that burr. If you don't remove the burr, your knife will not cut well. I strop all of my kitchen knives, and bench tools in my shop. Any knife, or chisel, or plane iron, is a razor saw. Micro teeth which cut like a saw. With lots of use, the teeth get bent out of line. The strop may put the teeth back in line a bit. The steel, being harder, will line the teeth back up again. Saw one of my wood lathe friends dull his skew chisel on the lathe bed (the one tool we strop), and then took it to a 60 grit, yes 60, not 600, grinding wheel to put a new edge on it, and then stropped it. One pass on his arm, and the hair was gone down to the skin. As for stropping material, thinner leather or even canvas, is better because it won't deform as you strop. Kangaroo is considered by some to be the best because it doesn't compress. Vegetable tanned cow hide, the thin stuff, not the saddle leather stuff, is very good as well. Some even use old denim. Stick it to some thing smooth and firm/hard. You can even use granite counter top scraps. Load it with compound, and strop. There are stropping compounds up to 60,000 grit. The cheap black stuff you can get at big box stores, they call it 'polishing' compound is in the 800 grit range. As for colored compounds, well, color is no real indicator of grit, and at best a very loose range. Red 'jeweler's rouge' is in the 30,000 grit range. There are a host of diamond pastes. One friend told me to check out gem stone polishing pastes and diamond compounds, some of which go up to 200,000 grit. Probably not practical for most cutting surfaces though.

Hello Burrfection. I was curious if you could tell me if there is a difference between polishing and sharpening? I am completely new to the blade sharpening world

You're getting so close to 100k subscribers!

Hey Ricky! What do you recommend from 800-1200 stones - Suehiro Gokumyo or Naniwa Chosera?

Very helpful to see you with the PT50A sharpness measuring tool. As an engineering type, there is great value in a repeatable test method and one that is available. Frankly, it drives me nuts to see someone cutting paper, the characteristics of which--including the humidity of the paper and the surrounding air--are all unknown or necessarily described with the most general plain English language descriptors. So congratulations on raising the bar and allowing serious craftsmen an objective way to gauge the work. Now we have something that is repeatable and objective. FWIW, I mostly no longer bother with other sharpening videos with titles such as, "Scary sharp," "Wicked sharp," and, "Razor sharp." They simply are not comparable, one to another. Here is a new suggestion: it is another tool to add to your arsenal: a lighted magnifier to actually SEE the edge. And there must be some way to capture the magnified image to video and so allow it to be incorporated into your presentation. I have tried a few lighted magnifiers, the best of which is from www.magnifier.com, Item # MMT-10LED, a 10x lighted stand magnifier for about $26.00. It uses two AA batteries and has a one-inch lens. This is also, to be sure, not a perfect solution. But it really is wonderful actually to be able to SEE the edge and the effect of various grits and polish. Also much easier to see chips and the uniformity of the sharpening angle. FWIW, I have tried of couple of other lighted magnifiers and one major complaint is the battery life. One magnifier uses hearing aid size batteries and they are not cheap and don't last very long. Also have a Coddington style lighted magnifier and it suffers, as do many similar small diameter magnifiers, of a very limited angle of view and its single AAA battery has similar short battery life and brightness. So your next challenge is to create a jig of some sort to hold the magnifier and a workable macro camera lens setup! I look forward to it! Onward and upward, Ricky!!! Thanks again for these wonderfully wide-ranging, organized presentations! Mike

@mrdavman13

10 ай бұрын

Except that sharpness tester can be cheated very easily if you know how to do it and give extremely warped results

do you have any clips on sharpening steel? do you ever use it?

Ey man, i appreciate it. Thumbs up well deserved. Have a nice day 😁

Did you use the leather without honing compound?

Hey fella have you got the new shapton seven series stones yet if so what you think of them

Please do a revision of this chat and add a ceramic rod. The comparison would be great! Thanks!

I have five damascus chef knifes now but I will practice with my oldish cheap knifes with my new whet stone.

Nice man

I literally just purchased a chosera 3000 for polishing my knifes .. is it worth me getting a leather strop? If so, which one would you recommend? I have wusthof sontoku with hollow edge and a few globals.. global SAI

your the BEST !

Can you Please do yoshihiro kinfe reviews?

I wonder if you keep all of this information on Google docs spreadsheet and share with the public read only.

Nice job applying a scientific method. I wondered if the knife that received the strip and whetstone had twice the strokes and time as the other two?

@joshportelli

3 жыл бұрын

Great observation! The extra strokes alone may account for some of the extra sharpness in stone+strop. It would indeed take forever to perform all the DOE's needed to sort out all the noise factors in the experiment. But I think the conclusion makes perfect sense: The softer strop surface can conform a tiny bit better to smooth out a few more imperfections that the stone can never touch to get a slight 'edge' over stone sharpening alone. And with a strop being a little soft, it makes sense that over time as the blade drifts farther out of shape the soft conforming strop can never get that re-shaping back to ideal shape/flatness that a rigid stone can provide.

I've got loads of dull knives in the kitchen just sitting there not being used. We keep buying new ones. Some have teeth others don't. All I want to know is if I sharpen then on some whetstone is it "NECESSARY" to strop them afterwards. What does a strop do anyway?

@joshportelli

3 жыл бұрын

You can sharpen serrated knives also, but you need a different method to get into each tooth. Like a round, or cone, or trilobe shape sharpening stone.

Someone help me, I want to buy a strop from Ryke, but which type of leather for me? Spyderco pocket knives, Hinkels and Wustof kitchen knives. Which leather or rolled Buffalo ?

@dvxAznxvb

5 жыл бұрын

Another OverTaxed TaxPayer think lagito should be fine for the softer steels

@seff2318

5 жыл бұрын

Another OverTaxed TaxPayer You might see a slight increase in performance with the rolled buffalo but cowhide leather is perfectly adequate. What happens when you move from a whetstone to a strop is you’re not only knocking off that remaining wire edge but you’re polishing out the micro serrations which in turn will make your knife feel initially sharper but the edge will not last as long if it had just come straight off a stone. So simply put- more polish= more sharpness but less edge retention. I would say that what you actually put on the strop is more valuable than what the strop is actually made of. For instance cbn emulsion vs standard compound. The abrasive particles in the emulsion are more uniform in turn giving you a more consistent edge. I’d like to add that if you’re sharpening any kind of super steels you will benefit greatly from either a diamond spray or cbn emulsion as it will help to cut the steel faster since particles are harder. I personally use a double sided cowhide strop with one side flesh out for my “fine” polishing and one side smooth for “ultra fine”. I hope this helps you! It’s taken me years to find what works best for me so your mileage may vary.

@Burrfection

5 жыл бұрын

i've used rolled buffalo for all my knives from 55 up to 64 rockwell, and its' worked great.

@maximalgaming9955

5 жыл бұрын

Rolled buffalo is what ryky advised to me. It has worked well for all my knives. I've used on 4116 German steel, vg10, and sg1.

@asleepyinsomnia

5 жыл бұрын

haha i use some harbor freight polishing compound, and some scrap veg tan leather from other projects. still able to shave with my knife. I never really got into diamond emulsion because it doesnt fit my needs, but i can definitely see the merit. also, have you tried horse hide? i heard on some forum that horse hide is much better than cow hide, but locating that stuff where i live is pretty difficult

I would like to see more knife reviews from this channel. I know you have a lot of knives on hand but you haven't given your comments on any of them like yaxell mons.

Great job compiling this information. How tedious

Interesting bit of information question the buffalo strop did you use the smooth side? Was it treated with a buffing compound? What kind?

@Burrfection

5 жыл бұрын

smooth side, no loading at all.

@SpamMusubi308

5 жыл бұрын

@@Burrfection aaaahhh yes ok well it's time for me to build a better strop thanks

Great video! But I have one doubt, I have a kitayama 8000 to polish my knives, and I also have a bovine leather strop with chromium oxide paste. I would like to know which one should I use last in this case, the strop or de 8000 grit ? OBS: All my knives are AS (Aogami Super) about 63 HCR. Thank you very much for the video and greetings from Brazil.

@seff2318

5 жыл бұрын

Eduardo Pagne Massaro If you can find out the how many microns the paste is, it will determine whether it’s giving you a keener edge than the stone. I finish on a 6k and strop on bare leather sometimes as to not polish out any of the “teeth” or micro serrations. That’s why ryke was getting diminishing returns with the longevity of the edge coming off the strop because he was polishing away the micro serrations. A good rule of thumb is the lower the grit the longer the edge will last because the teeth are much more pronounced. Certain compound and pastes will have a micron rating stated on the container. I use a 1 micron CBN emulsion for touch ups. 1 micron translates to roughly to 16,000 grit. Your 8k kitayama is roughly 2 microns. So as I said before figure out the micron rating of your paste and that will let you know if it’s giving you a sharper edge. If I want to push the initial sharpness off my polishing stone I strop with cbn emulsion but if I just want to clean up the edge and knock off any remaining burr and I want the edge to last longer, I strop on bare leather. I hope that helps!

@duca_br5547

5 жыл бұрын

@@seff2318 thank you very much!

@curseofthegreat

5 жыл бұрын

Hey, another Massaro! How are you liking that 8K Kitayama? I’m planning on picking up something to put in my lineup between my Rika 5k and Shapton 12k. Debating between 8k Naniwa Snow White and 8k Kitayama.

@seff2318

5 жыл бұрын

Eduardo Pagne Massaro You’re so welcome! I’m happy to help. I know the world of knife sharpening can be overwhelming and confusing. Always glad to help demystify the often contradictory and or redundant information there is on the internet lol. Good luck :)

@seff2318

5 жыл бұрын

J.P. Massaro sorry to hijack the comments lol but If I had to choose between the two I would go with the kitayama. I’ve heard of far too many accounts, with seasoned whetstone users, of the snow white cracking after a couple months of use. Albeit it’s a fantastic stone I just prefer my stones to be less “fussy”. however if curiosity gets the better of you buy it from sharpeningsupplies.com they have a 90 day guarantee. I’ve personally spoken with their customer service staff about this issue and they said they will replace it no questions asked and even work with me if something goes awry after 90 days. I hate to confuse you even more and contradict myself but I may be seeing a snow white in my future once I have the funds.

I have an 800 and a 3000 stone. Can I just use a piece of leather that I have on hand or do I need to invest in a special material strop? Also do I Need compound too? I should tell you that I am obsessed with obtaining the sharpest possible edge and all my knives are Wusthof as they were my sponsor. I look forward to your advise. Thanks!

@Burrfection

3 жыл бұрын

Any leather will do. Just make sure it is relatively smooth. Large wrinkles cam throw the edge off a bit.

@SurvivorStory

3 жыл бұрын

Wowza, I just sharpened my first! a very dull 5” Wusthof classic from the 80’s, my first real knife and I can’t believe how well it transformed from not being able to cut paper to super sharp sliced through paper like magic! THSNK YOU FOR YOUR VIDEOS!

Where are the knife reviews at?

So method 3 gave the best results, now please do method 3 with strops with different compounds!

But what was the stone grit? If the strop is simply a finer abrasive it would explain these results, but if that's the case, one could also get a finer stone to contradict the results.

@joshportelli

3 жыл бұрын

Great point, this could be a noise factor of the experiment. Would love to see a DOE on effect of this variable.

Where can I email you. I'm not sure if you are aware but there is a cheap knife company using a small clip of you. To sell the knifes they make

Did you use any compounds on the strop in this test? If not im curious what the results would've been with a good compound..

@Burrfection

5 жыл бұрын

None used. Just naked rolled buffalo

@maximalgaming9955

5 жыл бұрын

@@Burrfection thanks for the great video Ryky.

I presume the steel was White #2? It would be interesting to see the same test with a different steel, say ZDP189. Edge retention on the "strop only" degraded over time, which is what you might expect. The buffalo was unable to "sharpen" the edge further. The edge retention with the Rika 5k did not degrade over time as the stone brought it back to the initial sharpness each time, which makes sense. I would have predicted that the rika/strop knife would have degraded over time also, if, all you did is strop on buffalo in the subsequent "stropings". Did you only strop or did you "polish" on the rika 5k and strop each time? If you only stropped, the edge degradation, presumably would occur with more rope cutting and would degrade like the strop only knife did. It is interesting that the initial polishing on the Rika 5k would extend the edge retention vs the strop only knife. Great job and thank you. Incidentally, I bought one of your large shell cordovan strops on Etsy. It's amazing. My best strop by far. No compounds for that one! Thanks.

@wsswilson2

5 жыл бұрын

Burt Gummer that's also my doubt: Ricky , Did you only strop or did you polish on the Rika and strop every time?

shit, i hoped to do well with only stropping my myiabi knives

i tried stropping but it got ny knife blunt what am i doing wrong?

@cmares5858

5 жыл бұрын

A few tips that have worked for me. A strop can for sure make your knife duller if you are not careful. -Do not press too hard, very lightly, just let the weight of the blade lay on the strop -Go with a little shallower of an angle on the strop vs stone if you are at 15 degrees on the stone try 13 degrees on the knife (estimates) -Do not strop too much, since the stop is squishy somewhat you can imagine its actually rolling over your very tip of the edge ever so slightly. you do not want to strop for very long. Id say 5-10 swipes per side and thats it

After I switch to ratchet belts I just used one of my old genuine leather belts.

Ciao i tuoi video sono molto interessanti potresti fare una traduzione in italiano con i sottotitoli in tutti video che fai?Sarebbe cosa molto gradita da chi come me parla solo in italiano.

where did you get the info on stropping education. to me ,you learned from the back of a matchbook cover. there are many if not hundreds of total methods that one can final finish on a stropp. from what you have here in the video, there is quite a bit of education on stopping that you have omitted. stripping surfaces, compounds as most of all technique.

I suck at sharpening knives

When sharpening your knife use both the polishing stone and the strop. If you're just touching up your knives use just the strop unless the knife is more on the dull side.

@georgeneckrock7575

4 жыл бұрын

Thank you very informative !!!

Evidence based practices ftw!

Also, PUKE I say, we're not a damn laboratory experiment!!! You remind me of Sales Vs. R&D- Holy!!!!!!

Just to let you know, I'm getting awful results from the kit(dot)com website you use to aggregate recommended kit. Very slow and basically impossible to use at least through my android device. Trying to select an item or add an item to your own account is hit and miss you say the least. I really think you'd be better off with different service.

Jesus, just answer the damn question. Droning on and on with numbers and test results payed out in charts and graphs that nobody cares about or understand. See, I’m leaving and still don’t have any idea which route to go.

Nice video, but did you really have to use the n word so much?

You really need to use different music in your videos, this repetitive stock music is insanity inducing levels of aggravating.