Recommendation? Good brands of stropping compound

B

Bo-dacious

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Aug 13, 2016
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Hey guys, I'm looking for a couple bars of good stropping compound. They don't have to be the best brand, but a good one for a decent price. Fine and super fine would work very well. Someone suggested Veritas green compound which is .5 microns. That works well but is there another Veritas so I can have 2 steps? And if there is, is it finer or courser than the green?
Are there any other good brands of these wax suspended compounds?
Lastly, in what order do the colors of the compounds generally go from courses to finest?
For example, is green finer than white?

Thanks guys,

Bo
 
Not wax but oil based, at least the one product I own...(and located in Canada)...so why not look at the products from Kent Supplies?
(Maybe they have other products of interest that would be easily available to you up there as well.)

Lee Valley / Veritas, of course, is another (excellent) Canadian company in my experience.
 
I absolutely love my BRK compounds. You can even THREE step that bitch. BRK’s colors are black, green, and white, and their grit ratings are 3k, 6k, and 12k, respectively.

Blues offers a phenomenal suggestion with Kent Supplies pastes, and that would actually be my foremost recommendation as well. You will be able to grab two grits of basically whatever you would like.

A personal favorite of mine is 5-7 micron and then 1 micron. Should help you bring back a relatively well-used edge to extreme sharpness quite quickly
 
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Blues: I prefer the less messy Cubes of compound myself. Are you saying that oils are better or are you saying that the Cubes I'm talking about are oil based?

Thanks man,

Bo
 
Bo-dacious said:
Blues: I prefer the less messy Cubes of compound myself. Are you saying that oils are better or are you saying that the Cubes I'm talking about are oil based?

Thanks man,

Bo
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I have a block of the wax based Veritas green that I've had for years. I was using it primarily on one of the Lee Valley double sided leather strops, one side bare, one side with compound.

I recently started to strop on some basswood I've had laying around from whittling / carving projects some years ago...and I like stropping on the basswood more.

I have one side with the old (wax based) green chrome from Veritas, and another side with 1 micron (oil based) diamond paste from Kent.

The oil based product is not messy and a small dab can cover a large area of the strop. I do find that I will get a small amount of buildup at the edge / bevel which I wipe away with a piece of chamois or clean shop towel.

In the end, you need to go with the products you prefer but it seems to me that you are still in the process of finding out what works and what doesn't which is why I put the suggestion out there in case you might find it useful.
 
Beans: okay, but I'm looking for something a little finer like Veritas green compound and then another one like it for a 2 step. I just prefer the blocks to the pastes. Does anyone know if Veritas makes a more or less fine block of compound?

Blues: when you strop bare, do you use the leather side or the suede side? And do you do that before the loaded side or after? I see you use wax based with oil based. What's a good Kent compound to go with the Veritas green (I still prefer the wax). Yes I'm still figuring it out. All I've used is unnamed, unrated wax compounds. This thread is helping though.

Thanks guys,

Bo
 
The leather strop I actually use has smooth hard leather. (Though I have others laying around unused that are of nappier stuff, or other materials.)

That said, I'm not much of a stropper and don't employ the technique that often. My favorite stropping method was always on denim over my thigh while wearing jeans.

I only have the green chromium oxide bar, and the 1 micron diamond paste. Which I use depends on the steel involved, what the edge requires, and I generally don't go from one to the other.

Others here will be able to give you much better information as to what grits, bars, compounds and pastes are your best bet.
 
Bo-dacious said:
Beans: okay, but I'm looking for something a little finer like Veritas green compound and then another one like it for a 2 step. I just prefer the blocks to the pastes. Does anyone know if Veritas makes a more or less fine block of compound?

Blues: when you strop bare, do you use the leather side or the suede side? And do you do that before the loaded side or after? I see you use wax based with oil based. What's a good Kent compound to go with the Veritas green (I still prefer the wax). Yes I'm still figuring it out. All I've used is unnamed, unrated wax compounds. This thread is helping though.

Thanks guys,

Bo
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For sure man, Veritas is about half-micron, so you could hit Kent for some 1 and .25 micron paste, or there is .5 and .25. If you wanna go finer, I believe you'll have to go to other brands like Jende, or Richmond/Schwartz, et cetera, and those guys charge a pretty penny.

Edit: Oh, sorry, I didn't notice you wanted to dodge the pastes. I would say the Veritas and then I am pretty sure you're gonna have to go with a diamond or CBN paste, or spray. I don't know of any compounds finer than standard CrOx that are available in wax sticks, but Kent makes .25 micron paste available at a good price
 
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I've found that the backing substrate selected for use with a particular compound usually has a much greater impact on how well it works.

Most of the stick/bar/wax-based compounds I've tried have worked MUCH better on hard-backed linen or denim, which accept the compound more readily and more densely for very aggressive metal removal or polishing. And probably the easiest at rapidly removing stubborn, thick & heavy burrs. On leather strops, they're just not well-suited for it and it usually doesn't apply easily or evenly, unless some unorthodox application method is undertaken (heating, melting, mixing with oil, etc). With a more suitable substrate, even run-of-the-mill hardware store compounds can work very well or even excellently. I've tried compounds from Ryobi (bought at Home Depot) and Sears, none of which cost me more than maybe $6 a tube. All have worked well, and the Ryobi white rouge in particular is still my favorite, used on denim or linen.
 
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Obsessed, how do you make your denim strop? I'd like to try it with my BRK black and green bars.
 
natchezz said:
Obsessed, how do you make your denim strop? I'd like to try it with my BRK black and green bars.
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Pretty simple. My favorite one, with the Ryobi white rouge, was made using a long paint-stirring stick (sized for 5-gal buckets) from Home Depot (for free). Overall about 24" with roughly 18" of stropping length minus the 'handle' on the stick. I used spray adhesive (DAP Weldwood; it's basically a spray form of contact cement) to attach the denim cut from old jeans. I stretched the denim over a work surface and secured it with some clamps, then sprayed both the denim and the stick with the adhesive. Wait a few minutes (~ 15 or so) for the adhesive to get dry but still tacky, then stick them together. For a short while (couple hours or a day), it may be worth compressing the two underneath something heavy (stack of books, whatever), to make sure the bond is secure and the denim stays tight and smooth. Then trim the denim from around the edges of the stick. After that, just 'crayon' the stick compound onto the denim and get to work. :)
 
Bo-dacious said:
@obsessed: what side of the denim do you use? The inside of the jeans or the outside?


Thanks guys,

Bo
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Either side. The 'old' jeans I used for at least one of mine, were very old. I think I used the inside, just because it seemed a little less-worn, and crisper than the outer face of the denim. I did that on the assumption the crisper side might take & hold the compound better. But either side should do, I'd think.
 
Veritas is a blend of abrasive sizes made to hone and partially recondition woodworking tools - in the same vein as Flexcut Gold.

The Formax (IIRC they make the Veritas blend) regular green microhoning compound is .5 micron and reliably graded.

Dico makes a good series of crayon type compounds, their black (20-30 micron) is probably the best one out there.
 
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