Flitz, Ok for a strop?

would probally work but as well as it should--get yourself some green 0.5 micron compound--will do you well--:D
 
Flitz makes a good strop. I was a flitzin last night, sorry if that is tmi.
 
Well, if Flitz works then Brasso should work even better as it cuts more agressive . Suggesting the grit size is larger . Both dry quickly leaving a powder on your strop . Wonder what micron size they are ? DM
 
Wow. I just posted this exact thread...I should have looked first, but what are the chances of two people having the exact same thought? (Apparently pretty good).
 
Flitz, Mothers mag polish, Met-All all work well. The main problem is as mentioned, that they dry out. They are great for one time use especially on paper, cardboard, etc. If you don't have a leather strop, just try some on a piece of paper, magizine cover, of best on a thin cardboard like a telephone book cover. For a slight convex use the magazine or phone book cover with the rest still attached. Can be used again but not as effective when dry. The sound gives nice feed back as to the angle when you are getting to the edge on cardboard when wet too.

The wax based polishes like the green CrO2 work better for repeat use. The green is finer then any of these liquid or past polishes mentioned. If you want coarser in the wax type for leather strop then try the black. Still a little finer though.

Coarser is not necessarily better, just faster. It depends on what step in the polishing you are. If it is taking too long you are just skipping to many steps in the graded grit process. I like to finish with leather and white rouge. All of this is much faster on a belt grinder with leather belts or a buffer and more steps can be effectively skipped then when working by hand.

Gary
 
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David Martin said:
Well, if Flitz works then Brasso should work even better as it cuts more agressive . Suggesting the grit size is larger . Both dry quickly leaving a powder on your strop . Wonder what micron size they are ? DM
Click to expand...

I think that "David" makes a good point to consider here. He's right about Brasso and some of the other older polishes probably working better on a strop because Flitz and many of the newer non-abrasive polishes don't have any small abrasives to be ideal for stropping.

Now please don't take that as a slam against Flitz products because they are good products and I use them a lot. But you want to impregnate a good strop with very small abrasive particles to get that extra sharpening effect from it. Your Flitz would have some great cleaning properties to it as far as corrosion removal and getting the cutting edge very clean.

There's another Polish that I used once on a strop and it seemed to work. It was called Hagerty Metal Polish. It's like Brasso in that it's been around since I was a kid. It's not bad either.

The green chromium oxide you can get from Japan Woodworker works great too.
 
Flitz is abrasive, regardless what they say.
You can't polish metal without abrasion.
 
I use BRKT's green compound and then Mother's Mag & Aluminum Polish. I now get stellar results. Highly recommended.
 
I know for a fact that Simichrome polish is finer than green polishing compound. I would think Flitz, Mother's, etc. are, too.
 
Flitz dry on my compressed leather strop still polishes, and it drys almost chalky, so I believe Mr. DeShivs when he says Flitz is abrasive.
 
We had talked about this a while back and if you look at the MSDS flitz DOES have abrasive in it so don't be fooled. The problem is that the abrasive in these products are usually for softer metals, they still work but the proper compound works many times better.
 
I hope we never fully figure this stuff out. What will we do if there is no more edgy pursuit?
 
Bill DeShivs said:
Flitz is abrasive, regardless what they say.
You can't polish metal without abrasion.
Click to expand...

That may be true, I wouldn't argue with you as if it doesn't have micro abrasives in it. But I do know for an absolute fact that the older generations of metal polishes do have a much coarser abrasive than does Flitz or any of the other newer polishes.

I can even feel the stuff that's in Brasso. If you measured the abrasive compounds that are in Flitz versus what they have in Brasso I bet the micron diameters are profoundly bigger. I know they are because I can feel them.

Flitz seems to have the same texture as a salve or ointment. I can't feel anything in Flitz. But I have no doubt that there might be sub-micron particles in Flitz.

But I do believe that older polishes like Brasso or Hagerty's would be much better for stropping compound. I don't know the micron rating on that green chromium oxide that Japan Woodworker sells but I bet it's not even as big as what's contained in Brasso.
 
Honing an edge with a strop does not require large abrasive particles. Brasso is practically ineffective on steel. It's not even a good brass polish!
Simichrome (and I imagine Flitz, etc.) will polish steel.
 
I tried Brasso on a strop a while back, out of curiosity (subject came up before, which piqued my curiosity). Doesn't work very well on modern high-alloy steel, regardless of whatever the particle size is. As it's name implies, it's made for softer metals. It uses silica for the abrasive, which isn't very hard compared to modern knife steels. It might be somewhat usable on simple carbon steels. Flitz or Simichrome both utilize aluminum oxide abrasive, which is much harder and works much faster on steel.

EDIT:
As to Flitz being characterized as a 'non-abrasive' polish, that isn't the case. It's abrasive (aluminum oxide) is extremely fine AND cuts well (meaning it polishes well). Same applies to Simichrome. This not only makes it usable on a strop, but even ideal for the task. I've been using Simichrome frequently, and it works great on many higher-alloy steels like 440C, Sandvik 12C27M, VG-10 and D2.

EDIT (again):
Just realized I'm replying to a 2 year-old thread. Hopefully this issue's been put to rest by now. ;)
 
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