Stropping Compounds

[judgebc]

I have been stropping my swivel knife with Tandy's White Rouge every day for two months.

Today,I used my Formax Micro-fine Green Rouge.  

Wow the swivel knife slid like butter over the leather.

 

[Martyn]

16 hours ago, judgebc said:

I have been stropping my swivel knife with Tandy's White Rouge every day for two months.

Today,I used my Formax Micro-fine Green Rouge.  

Wow the swivel knife slid like butter over the leather.

 

There's a lot of factors at play. Certainly some compounds seem to work better than others, but what is often forgotten is that stropping is the last step in sharpening. If you have sharpened the tool properly, then stropping can be effective with just plain leather and no compound at all. The more you are relying on compounds to get the edge, then the duller the tool to start with. It's better to get the tool as sharp as you possibly can, before it goes near a strop. Then the strop is just a final finish. If you do that right, then you dont need expensive or fancy stropping compounds.

[judgebc]

Martyn, Yes sharpening is a "ART".

I sharpened my Tandy ergonomic swivel knife on a 3x10 DMT Diasharp extra fine, then 3x8 Spyderco UF306 ceramic.

I used a Big Red Sharpening fixture by Chuck Smith to keep the angle consistent.

I could have used my Tormek, maybe I will try using it on my Robert Beard swivel knifes when they come in a year.

[Tannin]

 

Great chart, although I too have come to the conclusion that green is coarser than white.  However, they seem to produce similar results as far as I can tell.  Most suppliers recommend green for carbon steel and white for stainless-steel, which suggests to me that white is softer, as I believe stainless steel is considered a softer steel (but perhaps it just requires/warrants a finer finish?).

On 2/21/2016 at 6:52 PM, Art said:

The composition, effect, and packaging of buffing compounds is really all over the board and has been for years. A good buffer (technician) can make anything work on darn near anything. A felt buff with anything on it can be used to cut anything, but obviously the right compound will make the job easier. ... For stropping, you just need something fine enough to polish an edge, ... I use .5 micron green compound from Formax....You might see white compound also, it is .25 micron and in my opinion too fine for stropping.

 

Interesting, I've been looking into the green vs. white which is finer issue for some time and the answers vary.

I used to strop with plain leather - worked fine.  Then I tried Autosolv white metal polish on the leather strop, that worked well: it produced a nice shiny finish - it has some cleaning effect too.  Then after reading-up on compounds I bought a large block quality white (aliminium oxide?) compound, enough to last several lifetimes!  I notice that Americans prefer green (chrome oxide) compounds but white was allegedly finer, so I figured I'd use that.  I bought a metal polishing kit last year and contacted the maker, they confirmed that white was finer than green.  So I have some strops with white compound, some with green.  I often use just one or the other but sometimes start with green and then finish with white (and sometimes a bare strop or strop with metal polish after that).

BTW I've been experimenting with strops recently:

- Most recently with a large MDF strop. I have green compound on the rougher side (which as expected is quickly getting flatter & smoother with use) and white compound on the smooth side. 

- I also made a leather "Power-Strop": 3 thick, saddle leather, 4" diameter disks glue together & mounted on a spare drill arbor).  I use it with green compound. It works very well, fixing some edges that had proven stubborn in the past, so...

- I made another "Power-strop", this time slimmer with a curved edge-profile, for stropping the interior of carving gouges.  Not that useful it turns out as I use mainly "out cannel" gouges (which have their bevels on the outside) - they really only need a quick hand-strop to deburr the inside and the outside can be done on the basic flat powerstrop or by hand.

Edited September 17, 2016 by Tannin

[Tannin]

BTW There is a chap on youtube who polishes an axe head to a very impressive mirror finish.  He goes through a long series of progressively finer "flap wheels", papers & compounds. It took him all day. I was surprised to see him going to (presumably soft, fine) red jewelers rouge (after dark grey, light grey, green and then white compound) - using buffing wheels.  I don't think he used blue compound though.  The result was truly impressive. Very shiny.

The sequence of buffing with the various compounds begins @ 5:40:

 

Edited September 17, 2016 by Tannin

[Tannin]

However, it is easy to get carried away with all these compounds.  To put things in proper perspective I like the review this video from time-to-time (stropping with "buff stick" begins @ 3.30), just to "keep it real":

Bare leather and then beef tallow and carborundum on leather K.I.S.S.  Watch his other videos for confirmation of just how sharp that knife is.