02/11/2022
Stropping really works!
It is perhaps difficult to imagine, but by sharpening a knife with a leather strop, the cut will be significantly sharper. A requirement is that you have sharpened the knife in advance. When talking about Japanese whetstones, we recommend to sharpen until at least 5000 grain before starting with stropping. Depending on the steel grade and the hardness of the blade, you will notice an improvement pretty soon when starting stropping. When you are testing a non-stropped knife by cutting a piece of paper, you will often notice that the knife catches and tears the paper. This also occurs with knives that are already sharpened. When you strop such a knife, you will notice that the tearing will be replaced with a smooth slice. Strops can be, in certain cases, even a better choice than a grinding stone with a finer grain.
Sources: https://www.knivesandtools.com/en/ct/what-is-knife-stropping.htm
