All files and abrasives cause small " Teeth" to form on the edges of any blade. The finer the abrasive, the smaller the "teeth". However, for a blade to be sharp enough to shave with, those " teeth" need to be removed.
That is what stropping a blade does after you finish putting a fine burr on the edge with your hardest wet stone. Stropping removes the "burrs", and those fine teeth. The Benefit of doing this, is that these teeth are no longer attached to the actual, or " True Edge" where they can catch onto something hard, and TEAR a chunk out of the true edge. Its the repeated tearing into the true edge that causes blades to "dull".
I recently bought some of those "diamond hones" at Harbour Freight, to use with some of my kitchen knives. They do remove steel. However, even the finest "hone" leaves way too much of a burr on the edge of the blade.
The other day, I grabbed a stainless steel spoon, and used the side of its shank to strop the edge on a recently sharped paring knife where I used the fine diamond hone. It produced a much superior edge on the knife. Its not as good as using my leather belt "strop" for the same purpose, but my belt and stones were in another room in the house, and I was trying to prepare some meat in a hurry.
In commercial kitchens, where the tables are almost always made of stainless steel these days, I have used the Edges of a table to strop knives to bring the edges up straight, after someone has let them get dull, and crooked by cutting around bones, and pressing the edge against the bones too much. Straightening the edge lets you use the knife a while longer, but any abuse of the edge will require re-honing, eventually.
Files,and those grooved Steels sold for " sharpening" knives will both ruin a fine edge, and leave teeth of one size or another, as well as burrs. If you must have a hard "strop", use a plain piece of stainless steel, polished as smooth as a mirror, to strop your knife again. [For those who are new to using knives, when you HONE an edge, the movement of the blade against the hone is always Towards the Edge. When you STROP an edge, the movement is always AWAY from the edge.]
For the doubting Thomases, and my peanut gallery of critics, here, I recommend using a good magnifying glass, or microscope set at 10x, and natural light to look at edges before and after whatever it is you use. Then, try it my way, and look again.
Either use the Instruction sheet that Roger Needham passes out to customers at his "tent" at the entrance at Friendship, or read his article on "How to Sharpen a Knife", published a couple of years ago in Muzzle Blasts. Or, you can buy " The Razor Edge Book of Knife Sharpening" by John Juranitch, to learn about all this. I buy my honing stones from Roger. I learned my skills in sharpening knives( and chisels and other edged tools) from The Razor Edge Book, and by being a skeptic enough to try everything they wrote, and others have written I could find on sharpening knives.
I am still amazed at the ads still allowed on TV where companies are conning the viewers with little tricks to "prove" they are practically Giving you a knife that is "indestructible" .
I watched one the other day, where they pretended to Dull the edge on some thing hard, and then sliced a tomato. In doing the slice, they stroked the knife blade, only slightly , but like any saw would be used. The real proof of the edge of a knife is whether you can slice that same tomato just pushing down lightly on the edge, without the sawing action. Just like you would expect to use a knife to peel a potato, or slice an apple. :hmm:
