Stropping and using a steel

- Stropping

Stropping consists of running the edge along a piece of leather charged with some kind of abrasive like stropping paste or green chromium oxide (I had previously said jeweler's rouge is okay, but have since heard that a more aggressive cutter is needed). It is done for a short time to finish off the burr, or for a long time to give the edge a final polish. Stropping is an easy-to-use finishing step (as opposed to the difficulty in keeping a consistent angle on a stone).

Before you strop, remember to wash and dry your newly-sharpened knife. If you don't, you might grind leftover metal particles into the strop itself. If you need to charge your strop, put a little paste on your fingers and rub it into the leather.

To strop, you run the edge along the leather with the blade positioned spine first and the edge trailing (opposite way from sharpening on a stone). With a thin straight razor, the spine of the razor is always kept on the strop, and direction is reversed by flipping the razor over along its spine. In my experience, this isn't necessary with a utility knife. You can strop with the blade spine raised above the leather (don't lift too high -- if the edge bites into the leather, that's too high), and change directions by lifting the entire knife up, turning it over, and placing it back down.

If you've never stropped your knife before, give it a try. It will come out very sharp, but of course polished and so optimized for push-type shaving cuts. The strop to some extent can make up for less-than-perfect sharpening technique -- a sharp knife can be made extra sharp on the easy-to-use strop. However, I always tell people that they should be able to get their knife scary sharp without the strop; don't let the strop keep you from recognizing weaknesses and improving your technique on the hone!

In the absence of a strop (say, out in the field), many people use their jeans and then their palm as a strop. There's probably no need to point out the danger in this practice, so don't do it. That said, I must admit to having done this myself on numerous occasions, and having gotten good results.

A safer and more effective trick is to use cardboard (say, the cardboard back of a standard notepad). You can optionally charge the cardboard with metal polish, just rub it in with your fingers. Then strop as above. Even without the polish, the cardboard will strop acceptably. Stropping with cardboard has become a de-facto standard last step for sharpening chisel-ground (single-side ground) knives these days, for burr removal purposes.

- Using a Steel

The sharpening steel should be an important part of your knife maintenance strategy, and is maybe the most mis-understood part.

When you use a knife for a while, especially a knife with a soft, thin edge like that found on a kitchen knife, the edge tends to turn a bit and come out of alignment. Note that the edge is still reasonably sharp, but it won't feel or act very sharp because the edge may not point straight down anymore! At this point, many people sharpen their knives, but sharpening is not necessary and of course decreases the life of the knife as you sharpen the knife away. It's also akin to putting in a thumbtack with a sledgehammer.

The steel is used to re-align the edge on the knife. Read that last sentence again. Re-aligning the edge is all the steel needs to do. It does not need to remove any metal. Since the steel's only function is to re-align, the sharpening steel can be perfectly smooth and still do its job. You'll see many bumpy steels on the market, but this is almost certainly because consumers think that steels must have bumps to work. The bumps can actually mess up the edge, and make the work of steeling more difficult.

There are two schools of thought on steels. Some people use grooved steels, which align the edge more aggressively but are harder on the edge. I use a smooth steel, which is easy on the edge but may align the edge more slowly.

To use the steel, run the knife along the steel on one side using light pressure -- no more pressure than the actual weight of the knife is required! Then move to the other side and do it again. Repeat a number of times until your edge feels sharp and nice again. I hold the steel in my left hand, the blade in my right, and lightly run the blade along the steel while keeping the steel stationary, but it's perfectly fine to move both steel and knife past each other at the same time, or whatever works for you.

Most people run the knife down the steel edge first, the same direction you use when sharpening. This yields good results. However, theoretically going edge-first along the steel could bite into the edge while straigtening it, and so many people like to go spine-first (like when stropping) instead. This method also works well, and I personally have begun to feel that steeling in this direction gets my edge the tiniest bit sharper. It is more awkward to go spine-first, so if you have any trouble with it move to edge-first, and your edge will end up just fine.

If you steel your knife every time you use it, you will significantly lengthen the time between sharpenings. I've found steeling to be critical on kitchen knives, but it's an incredible help even on ultra-hard ATS-34.