I have to totally disagree with that
Even after my 12K and CO on balsa when my blade is what I think to be sharpest I still see a big difference after my final passes on my linen and leather. No question about it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Joe Lerch
I don't know about that. Leather stropping does no sharpening nor any real polishing. It's just not abrasive enough. The principle behing it is that shaving deforms the microserrations, making them spread out so the blade seems thicker. Much of it is elastic, and the blade slowly returns to its aligned state, even without stropping, but a certain amount of misalignment remains, and that taken care of by stropping.
I don't know that variation in pressure really matters much. it seems that using the right pressure will realign the microserrations. Anything significantly more or less will simply overdo it (possible causing microserrations to break off from stress) or be too slow.
There's a sharpening study done by a professor which is posted here. He found that stropping after honing made very little, if any, difference. That's consistent with theory, since a newly honed edge would not have much misalignment in the microserrations. In fact, it seems that stropping before honing would minimize wear and make it easier to get the sharpest edge.