Quote Originally Posted by mparker762 View Post
I think the first step should be some specific tests to explore what effects are occurring at a scale that interests us. How much abrasion is the leather capable of, how much plastic deformation occurs and what type of deformation (straightening the edge vs drawing out the edge), etc. This isn't as much fun as arguing about it here, but pure discussion isn't as likely to give us answers as actually going out and doing some experiments.
Agreed. I think we came as far as possible in rounding up a good status questionis on this topic. It's unlikely to find any published experiments that offer direct insight on steel behavior to stropping, since it's a technique that doesn't seem to have any industrial use. I've done a lot of internet search on that in the past months.
But I also don't think we'd be able to make any progress without access to advanced methods of probing the resulting edges after experiments. Access to some form of Electron microscopy seems imperative. I might have one shot at gaining access to such a device for one or two evenings, but I have to talk to a friend about that first, 'cause he needs to pull the favors on my behalf. Even if it would happen, I'm not even sure what kind of experiments to set up.
I believe Seraphim has regular access to a SEM, maybe he's willing to conduct some field tests.

Bart.