Does balsa round the apex at all?

Rennd

Rennd

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Jan 22, 2014
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I just bought a bunch of edge pro balsa strops. I know they convex less than leather, but how do they compare to nano-cloth? I'm planning to progress to 1 micron paste, .5 micron paste, and .25 micron paste after the 220, 400, and 1000 grit stones.
 
Provided your technique is good then no it wont.

However I would look at adding another stone or two between a 1k stone , and a 16k compound.
 
Sadden said:
Provided your technique is good then no it wont.



However I would look at adding another stone or two between a 1k stone , and a 16k compound.
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I'm using the edge pro stock stones. I'm not sure what they're talking about with their grits, because their 1k is slightly finer than a shapton 8k.
 
Rennd said:
I'm using the edge pro stock stones. I'm not sure what they're talking about with their grits, because their 1k is slightly finer than a shapton 8k.
Click to expand...

Must be the difference between ANSI and JIS?

The balsa should be pretty resistant to rounding though does have potential for some deflection, especially if worked on the face of the grain. End grain or with the grain aligned perpendicular to the pressure will result in a bit more stability. Also a lot of folks that use it claim the hobby store balsa is softer than some other examples.
 
I had gotten some balsa for my weps from a forum member and it was very soft... it almost immediately pushed in. I could dent it with my finger.

According to Bob Nash he advised that there is apparently, different grades of balsa with some being harder and some softer.
 
Yes, there is different grades of balsa and some of it is far too soft and can easily round a edge. Typically balsa wood is found at the hobby center of a hardware store. This modeling balsa is harder and what I have always used for stropping.

Personally I prefer balsa over leather because it has very little give and makes abrasive compounds work a bit faster.
 
I'm using ken's edge pro strops, so I assume they'll be hard enough.
I'd expect it to be the difference between ansi and jis, but it still doesn't conform to grit standards on papers from 3m or other brands I've seen.
 
The stock EP 1k stone is 7u , making it slightly finer than a shapton 2k at 8u , this is a long ways from an 8k shapton at 2u and even further away from your 16k/1u compounds.

Once again i would reccomend adding a stone or two between your stock EP stone and the strops if your planning on doing a full progression of strops down into 0.25u (60,000 grit)territory.

You could make a couple passes on 1u after the stock 1k stone just to clean it up a bit and push sone more performance out of that edge. But it wouldnt be a true 1u finish. Making a further series of strops redundant.
 
Yeah, that's what I was basing my information off of. I hope that's right so I don't need to buy more stones.
 
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