Recommendation? Green or White Compund

MTHall720

MTHall720

Joined
Sep 21, 2010
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I am new to stropping. I have used the Fine grit DMT Bench stone. Would like something a little more polished. Now have a strop and two compounds but not sure which to start with. All advice is much appreciated.
 
Green works very well with simpler carbon or low-alloy stainless, such as 1095, CV, 420HC, 440A, etc. It won't be as effective for polishing more wear-resistant steels as mentioned below. The difference in performance between green and white is less about the size of the particles, and more about the difference in hardness between them (white aluminum oxide is about 50% harder than green chromium oxide). White is often larger in size, but will still be a better polisher with more wear-resistant steels than will green, which is less hard than the chromium carbides in steels containing a significant amount of those.

The white is usually aluminum oxide (Al2O3), and will be a good polisher on somewhat more wear-resistant steels with some significant hard carbide content (chromium carbides), or steels with relatively small amounts (< 3% or so) of vanadium content. These would be steels like 440C, 154CM/ATS-34, VG-10, D2, ZDP-189, etc.

With steels containing 3% or more vanadium, diamond/cbn would do better with those. Think of steels like S30V (4% vanadium) and beyond.
 
My green and white compounds are Woodstock brand. The white has always left deeper scratches than green on my knives regardless of whether they're soft or resistant to abrasion.
 
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I use:
Solingen Green Stropping Paste

and

Bark River 1 Bar White Compound

I also use

1 Micron CBN Cubic Boron Nitride Spray which I believe is the higher grit.





 
MTHall720 said:
Now have a strop and two compounds but not sure which to start with.
Click to expand...
you could do some tests. rub the compoundA on a smooth wood surfaceA, then manually polish a tiny smooth soft metal faceA (e.g. a copper washer, aluminum gasket, AA battery bottom) on it. then do the same with 'B'.
finally compare the sun light reflexions of faceA vs faceB, looking for micro and nano scratches which dull the mirror polish.

i bet my b*tt that the green compound leaves the finer finish.
 
The color is not an ABSOLUTE. A few mfg are making green more fine than white which I think is opposite the norm. I have some of that also. Pick a brand and find out from them.
Myself, I am actually switching to emulsion and sprays due to the results I’m getting.
 
Generally white is a little less fine than green. All of the whites I've looked at were about 1-3 micron, the green Formax is .5micron.

As mentioned by Obsessed, the white is more general purpose, the green works best on carbon steels.

I only use green on my woodworking tools.
 
I have red iron oxide powder (used by painters to produce their own paints for a painting), it is spec'd finer than green chrome oxide powder. i linked the PDF spec datasheets in one of my 478 posts.
 
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