Compounds For Stropping And Buffing

[mtroyalguy]

So I hope I am not off topic, but can you tell me the benefits of "rouge" and strop vs stones?

[J Hayes]

Gotta use them both, or at least I do. The stop is basically just a much finer abrasive, polishing the edge and removing the burr. I have a surgical hard Arkansas stone which leaves a really nice finish, super fine, but I'll strop it with Flitz 5-6 strokes per side and its nearly a mirror finish and seems to glide through the leather easier. You really don't even need stones, wet/dry sandpaper will do the job too, followed by the Flitz. Just my method, YMMV

Jeremy

[terrymac]

Jeremy,

I've heard of using valve grinding compound for a strop, and may try some day. What you say about a strop vs a stone is right on except when you get a big ding in your blade. I dropped my round knife in the rocks the other day and I would have worn out a whole bunch of paper getting it back to where it is supposed to be. I am using a 8000 grit diamond stone for final sharpening.

Terry

[Sanch]

1000 grit, 6000 grit, then finish on 12000 grit all Japanese water stones leftover from my straight razor making days.

[DavidL]

1000 grit, 6000 grit, then finish on 12000 grit all Japanese water stones leftover from my straight razor making days.

Would this work with rc60 steel? Once the blade goes dull for a leather knife would you touch it up with the finest stone you have or green compound and from time to time use a 12k stone.

[Sanch]

1k,6kand 12k then white compound for swivel knife blades same for head knife blades except green compound finish....

[OLDNSLOW]

Flitz is the way to go, it has very fine particles in it for polishing metal, plastic and other surfaces, I at one time had a one pound can but never thought I would use it again. I have been able to find it in small think catchup and mustard packs, type packaging, I took some and rubbed it in to a leather and use it for stropping and it works great.

[cord1974]

On 8/3/2011 at 2:34 AM, Ladykahu said:

Are there different base types (oil vs water) to the buffing compounds? or could it just have been his block was to old and had dried to much to rub off?

 

What I do for any strip is to take a bar of green compound and scrape off flakes into a cup.

Then I grind them as fine as possible. Add a bit of mineral oil til I have a slurry paste.

Then I run this into the leather.

It's worked well for the last decade.

[R SFraser Sr]

I'll add a little tip for those using leather as their stropping base.

Rub the compound bar of your choice onto the leather, (usually backed by wood) and then heat the strop up with a hair dryer.

Watch the wax/oil/abrasive melt into the leather, then apply more by rubbing the bar on. Heat again. This will build up a base layer of "charge".

Please notice I'm saying hair dryer not heat gun, it does not have to be burning hot (that will distort your flat strop surface).

 

[Tannin]

I agree with most of the original post: colour can be a useful guide but that some manufacturers deviate from it by colouring their compounds and obviously their recipes vary.

However, I believe the colour is often (not always) indicative of the abrasive used, or at least one of them.  For example:

- emery/carborundum/silicon carbide in black/grey coarse compounds for steel (coarse)

- chromium oxide in green compound (fine)

- aluminium oxide in white compound (finer/finest)

I've heard the base or medium which holds the abrasive variously referred to as: wax, fat, tallow, soap.  I expect all of those things - and more - have been used at different times. One forum member, a Scottish saddler, has a youtube video where he demonstrates the use of his extremely long strop, which is covered in beef tallow & carborundum.

I often go straight from worn 600 grit wet & dry paper (wear probably makes it closer to 1000/1200 grit) to white compound and that works fine.  Although I find myself using green alone or green first more these days, probably just because it seems to be more popular, esp. on USA forums.  To be honest, I don't notice any difference between white & green compound (or white Autosol metal polish) in practice, either can get you close to a mirror finish.  My working assumption is that (coarsest to the left, finest to the right):

       240 grit  wet bench grinder > 600 grit wet & dry > black/grey compound > green compound >= white compound >= Autosol metal polish

Not sure exactly where compounds fit into the waterstone grit spectrum but ...

My turn to be controversial: The big revelation for me is that I rarely bother using my 8000 grit waterstone now, because I can instead go straight to a strop with compound from 6000/5000/4000/3000/2000 and probably even 1000 grit -- you don't really need those very expensive, superfine 8000+ waterstones - they are just a very  expensive, messy and time-consuming way of polishing the metal. In fact the edge produced on my 1000 waterstones is quite usable even without further stropping/honing. I aim to the get the edge sharp on the first stone I use (which varies considerably), after that any further work is just refining that already sharp edge, with the aim making it last longer by cleaning up the jagged edge.

Edited August 25, 2016 by Tannin