Buffing compound for strops

[CitizenKate]

I decided to start a new topic on something that was posted on another one to avoid diverting attention away from the original topic:

You probably already know this, (but if you don't) make sure you've got some white jeweler's rouge to make a little strop with. The difference it will make in the ease of use of the swivel knife is almost as much as having the proper moisture content! And it just takes a couple of swipes on both sides of the blade to polish the little rascal up so that it slides thru the leather like a greased whatever...

Hi Kevin,

I'm curious why all the leather suppliers sell the white buffing compound, and nothing else? I decided to use the red once, and my knife tips are way sharper and smoother than I could ever get them with the white stuff. And I know there are other kinds out there (like "yellow" stuff and "green" stuff) that other leather workers seem to prefer over the white stuff. Que pasa, eh?

Kate

[hidepounder]

Kate,

The different colors represent different grits and are often used for different materials as well. I don't use the red much anymore. I polish with the white first and then use the green for a final polish. I use a strop loaded with green rouge for my swivel knife. When polishing with rouge, it makes a difference what grit stone was used first. The finer the stone, the less need for aggressive rouges. When buying the green rouge, one must be careful to get the one intended for steel. There are some out there that the knifemakers use that are intended for finishing wood, brass etc. Maybe some of them coud jump in here and explain this a lot better.

Bob

[Dale]

I'm going by memory, so I may be a little off. I think the color has more to do with the material it's trying to cut rather than its grit. The red is typically for softer metals whereas the white and green are more for harder metals.

[hidepounder]

I'm going by memory, so I may be a little off. I think the color has more to do with the material it's trying to cut rather than its grit. The red is typically for softer metals whereas the white and green are more for harder metals.

Dale...I think you are correct...I didn't mean that the way it sounded. It's just easier to refer to the different rouges by color. I know there is more than one kind of green...only because I ran into that question when I purchased the my first green rouge.

Bob

[UKRay]

Kate,

This is a very useful thread...

I mainly use a red traditional jeweller's rouge because I tend to have it lying about the workshop for polishing newly made silver work. It seems to work pretty well on my leatherwork knives. I do have some white stuff that seems a lot more aggressive so I'm very careful how I use it.

Perhaps someone could post a 'chart' of the various colours and their applications?

Does anyone use aluminium oxide powder as a sharpening/polishing aid - what does it do and why should anyone use it?

Ray

[gtwister09]

Bob,

The answer is both grit and material. Each performs different functions. Some only cut, some cut and color and some just color. Getting one that cuts and colors would be a better choice for general purpose or single use material (like in the use of the strop). I would imagine that long ago there was a greater availability of white compounds than there was of green for stainless steels....thereby the cost was significantly less for white than green.

At a high level... grits/color material/functions

Black is the most coarse and it's generally used for removing pits, scratches, rust and paint.

Brown Tripoli is next in the coarseness range and it is generally used for fast removal of softer metals.

White is even finer and is generally used for color and final finish on hard metals. It does have a cutting action.

Red is generally referred to as Jeweler's Rouge and is designed to polish without cutting.

Blue is another one that is designed for polishing without cutting.

Green is generally used for stainless steel for color and cutting.

Yellow is another one designed for color and cutting. It is somewhere between white and green.

Generally in buffing you have three phases.

(1) Rough Cut To Remove Scratches

(2) Final Cut & Initial Polish - you should first use your wheel with a cutting action, then finish with a color action.

(3) Final Polish - creates luster

As denoted above there is a cutting and color motion. The cutting motion produces a semi-bright, smooth and uniform surface. The color motion produces a shiny, bright and clean surface.

Cutting motion should be performed against the direction of the wheel with a medium to hard pressure.

Color motion should be performed with the direction of the wheel using a medium to light pressure.

The same applies to using the strop and pushing/pulling a swivel knife. One cuts and the other polishes.

Regards,

Ben

[MADMAX22]

Good stuff Ben

[CitizenKate]

Great info, Thanks, guys! But I still wonder... why do Tandy and other leather suppliers only supply the white stuff?

Kate

[Rawhide]

Great info, Thanks, guys! But I still wonder... why do Tandy and other leather suppliers only supply the white stuff?

Kate

Because Tandy is a corporate owned entity and everything they sell probably has to be approved by some team (probably board of directors)....Probably the same reason they don't sell any custom maker tools like hidecrafters.

It's much more cost effective to supply one kind of rouge than to stock more expensive ones...

[HorsehairBraider]

As a jeweler, who uses different polishing compounds, there are a lot of different ones on the market. If you check out a place like Rio Grande (Rio Grande Home Page ) you'll find lots of different polishing compounds. Some are more aggressive, some lighter... AND some dissolve in water and some do not. I personally use a BLACK "rouge" that is my final polish - it dissolves in water so I can easily wash it off my jewelry. (I don't get it from Rio.)

Basically, lots of different companies decide to market a polishing compound. Depending on what they use in it, it will come out different colors, and have different properties. You experiment with them and find out the best ones that work for you. Once you find something that works, well, "if it ain't broke don't fix it", stick with it.

I've used lots of them in my career. The "Bruce Bar" is one, there are tons more.

As to why Tandy only sells one type, that has to do with their guy in charge of products. That's what that person buys, so that's what they have for sale. Doesn't mean it's the "best". The "best" is the one that works FOR YOU.

[hivemind]

Back when I used to work in a musical instrument repair shop, we used the red stuff for buffing brass instruments before lacquering them.

[hidepounder]

I was reading a knifemakers catalog today and reading about rouges....they had a pink they were touting for final finishes. Just thought I'd throw that in to make a complicated subjet more complicated!

Bob

[Rawhide]

I was reading a knifemakers catalog today and reading about rouges....they had a pink they were touting for final finishes. Just thought I'd throw that in to make a complicated subjet more complicated!

Bob

Damn it Bob! I thought you were my friend...Now you go and complicate things.

[hidepounder]

Damn it Bob! I thought you were my friend...Now you go and complicate things.

It's crazy isn't it? I'm such a sucker for this stuff.....anything to make it brighter and shinier and sharper! It's like buying fishing lures....."maybe this will catch the big one!"

[laney1566]

I would like to know if all rouges are rock hard like the white sticks that Tandy sells. Is there something softer out there that can be rubbed into a strop easier?

[kevinhopkins]

Hi... For what it's worth, Ben's got it all pretty much right. The rouge that you use really doesn't matter Too much..... Depending on what you're doing with it. If it's for your swivel knife, usually red or white is best, with white being the fastest cutting, so that it only requires a few strops to get a blade with the proper angle slick again. The trick is to make sure that your blade has a proper angle on it to start with. The reason that Tandy only sells the white stuff is because of people like me.... I have a hard time being neat, and it seemed like everytime that I used the red rouge, I would get some itty bitty pc of it on my leather!!!! And it don't come off! White solved that problem, and slicked up my knife with just a lick or two. As to the Aluminum oxide, tin oxide, cerium oxide, and whatever other oxides, they'll all sharpen a blade to a varying degrees depending on how you use them. If I was a knife maker, and wanted to make a knife that would split frog hairs, I'd go thru all the steps to sharpen that knife. But if I'm carving leather, a little pc of leather with a bit of white rouge on it will get me by for quite a while, or at least until I drop my dumb knife!

Kevin Hopkins

[hidepounder]

I guess this would be my effort to try to tie a confusing issue to a practical application. If you are selecting a rouge to use for touching up your swivel knife, an aggessive cutting compound is probably counter-productive. The drag you feel when cutting leather is caused from a chemical reaction between the steel and the residual chemicals present in the leather, resulting a crystaline build-up on the blade. In this instance you only want to remove that build-up in order to continue cutting smoothly. The more aggressive the rouge used during this process, the more quickly the blade is dulled due to our inablility to maintain the same angle while stropping. Conversely, when actually sharpening the swivel knife blade, the use of a series of diminishing cutting compounds would be desireable, as a jig is used allowing us to maintain the same angle throughout the process, ending with a sharp, highly polished blade.

So...I guess it makes sense to have both cutting and polishing rouges on hand. Oversimplified probably, but how did I do?

Bob

Edited April 24, 2009 by hidepounder

[CampbellRandall]

For sharpening, the WHITE is normally a fine grit, and the GREEN is even finer. For a mirror finish, we recommend the green - which is our best seller. Besides the material type and grit size in the compound, some compounds will have more moisture in them, dependind on the make.

We sell the various compounds primarily for sharpening knives and beveler blades. (COMPOUND) Most of our customers buy the large green blocks and sharpen using cloth wheels on a grinder. You can also apply to strops. For a factory, the grinder method its fast and easy, although not as precise has hand sharpening. The paper wheels are a considerable improvement over the cloth wheels. In our shop we use the paper wheels for straight blades and the cloth wheels for shaped bevel knives (machine blades).

[rawhide1]

Interesting stuff!!

While digging thru a box of junk I found a tube of rouge. The brand name is Dico and it's marked as CR1. Further down it says this is for chrome (I think it's brown or a real dark red). My question to everyone is can I use this on my round knife and swivel knife and other cutting instruments. Or is there a different one I should use.

Thanks for any help, Mike

[yldbill]

I polish alot of tool steel for plastic injection molds. When we want to get a real good finish(meaning mirror) we use different color diamond compounds.It comes in a syringe and could be worked into a strop very easy. You would not want to do any major sharpening with the stuff but as a finishing polish you probably can't get anything much finer

here is alist from course to ultra fine:

Red

Blue

Green

Orange

Yellow

White

[masonshow]

Hi all,

I'm brand new to the world of leather working (just bought a few tools & scrap leather a week ago) and am learning a ton from you all--thanks!

Regarding stropping, I dug into my stash of sadly underused metalsmithing supplies and found some red jewelers rouge and an unused bar of white diamond tripoli. I've done a little online research on the white diamond tripoli but haven't found much out. Does anyone know if it's useful for stropping? Also, the rouge is probably 20-25 years old. Does jewelers rouge "go bad"?

Thanks for any assistance.