strop

Sharpening leaves a burr – a fragile wire edge that folds over on the first cut, which is why a knife feels keen for a day and then stops biting. Stropping aligns and polishes that edge rather than grinding it away, so the bevel comes up clean and mirror-bright and the edge holds longer between sharpenings. Ten to twenty light passes after your finest stone is enough. Far less steel comes off than a stone takes, so you can strop a kitchen knife every week for years without shortening its life.