Hand American Honing Film

[cziv]

I personally prefer Balsa wood for stropping that requires a flat surface. Maybe it's my leather strops that let me down, or the unevenness of the Compound I use

I clean Balsa with a napkin, that takes all the shine out of the surface and allows you to apply a coat of Compound.

I don't like Films much, since the scratching pattern is disturbed with the slightest steel removal. The films that I use to do a final finish don't last very long at all. Soap and a scrubbing pad or napkin doesn't seem to do much or anything

Your Mileage may vary!

Thanks

I had all but abandoned my balsa strop blocks until last night. I found one that was empty and charged it with a Hand American 2 micron liquid - syrupy gray stuff?? I really loaded it up good and let it sit for a few hours in a zip-lock.

I had reprofiled my RC-3 MIL to 40* inclusive and in the end had a spectacular, razor sharp edge. However, the new and wider bevel looked kind of busy under bright light. I had to spend a lot of time with a DMT Magna-guide and x-coarse stone just to get the new angle and raise a burr.

I was able to to finish it, but so much time on the x-coarse stone left it's scars, even though I came behind it with the full array of finer grit sones.

The point was - I couldn't get the scratch pattern to smooth out and look polished with my leather strops. I spent about 1/2 hour on that 2 micron balsa strop (didn't have a higher paste) and it removed the scratches and left me with a nicely polished new grind.

I finished it up with 2 leather strops loaded with HA 1.0 and 0.5 micron diamond sprays. I'm impressed and for use with pastes, I have a new respect for stropping on balsa.

 

[changeofseasons]

Here are the magnified photos of the honed ride lines...

This is the original ride line before being honed.

This is the ride line of the shear sharpened with diamond on frosted glass.

This is the ride line of the shear sharpened with diamond on plain plate glass.

It's interesting to see how much more the diamond on frosted glass cut and polished the ride. I can hardly tell the difference between the original scratch pattern and the shear sharpened with diamond on plain plate glass. Nevertheless, ability to cut did improve. I can only theorize at this point. My theory is that there is more of a straightening or slight deburring that occurs when using glass in this way.

 

[xtestifyx]

The point was - I couldn't get the scratch pattern to smooth out and look polished with my leather strops. I spent about 1/2 hour on that 2 micron balsa strop (didn't have a higher paste) and it removed the scratches and left me with a nicely polished new grind.

I finished it up with 2 leather strops loaded with HA 1.0 and 0.5 micron diamond sprays. I'm impressed and for use with pastes, I have a new respect for stropping on balsa.

:thumbup: Sometimes I look back at my results and wonder if I had done something wrong. If I do something for the second or third time after a short hiatus, I usually get better results. I believe patience is key



Where did you buy your Balsa? I have recently found Balsa wood readily available at Hobby shops and a crafting store called Joann's. The prices at the Hobby shop was way more appealing and it looked to be from the same manufacturer.

I find Balsa to be more forgiving, it gives if you dig your tip into the surface but it also collapses if you use too much force. The wood itself isn't expensive to replace, which is why it's what I prefer

Does anyone have a testimonial about HA's Diamond spray products? I'm anxious to try them and all I need is a single thumbs up review/write-up

Thank you

 

[cziv]

The results I got were obtained after trying out and discarding balsa strops at least a dozen or so times. This time was a charm. It just felt good and was very simple. I didn't worry as much about the leather rolling / dulling my edge. I figured the stuff was firm enough to assist me with that variable and I think it did.

I carefully lined up the edge and gave the edge a LOT of passes before switching to the other side. The compound being all over the edge told me that I was nailing the edge at the right angle.

I got my balsa from my wife who bought it for me at a craft store. It came in small boards and they pre-cut it in about 6 to 8 inch sections. I'm guessing, but folding knife sized.

I finished with two leather strops loaded with 1 micron Hand American diamond spray 1 micron and .5 micron. I'm going to load up a strop with that green stuff which is also about .5 micron and give it a try for finishing. It give the impression of being even finer than the Hand American diamond spray.

Get some HA products, they're not bank breakers and you get a ton of product for your money. YMMV.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

Here are the magnified photos of the honed ride lines...

This is the original ride line before being honed.

This is the ride line of the shear sharpened with diamond on frosted glass.

This is the ride line of the shear sharpened with diamond on plain plate glass.

It's interesting to see how much more the diamond on frosted glass cut and polished the ride. I can hardly tell the difference between the original scratch pattern and the shear sharpened with diamond on plain plate glass. Nevertheless, ability to cut did improve. I can only theorize at this point. My theory is that there is more of a straightening or slight deburring that occurs when using glass in this way.

Great photos, very interesting results. Gives me something new to think about now. This has evolved into a very informative thread, and it's another one for my 'Reference' subscription folder.

:thumbup:

 

[xtestifyx]

I finished with two leather strops loaded with 1 micron Hand American diamond spray 1 micron and .5 micron. I'm going to load up a strop with that green stuff which is also about .5 micron and give it a try for finishing. It give the impression of being even finer than the Hand American diamond spray.

Get some HA products, they're not bank breakers and you get a ton of product for your money. YMMV.

Thank you very much. Looks like I'll be trying some 1Micron and .5Micron sprays



changeofseasons: Very interesting results, I must say. The frosted glass looks like it's giving the edge it's own finish on top of the Diamond's. I think I'm seeing a burr forming there :thumbup:

 

[changeofseasons]

Knifenut: Thanks for the info about the inherent abrasiveness of the HA film. Now that they are back in stock at CKTG, I'll order a sheet and see if I can get some pictures of this.

xtestifyx: I'm not sure how much of the scratch pattern is from the frosted glass and how much is from the diamond. I should have taken a picture of a shear honed with no abrasive to see how the bevel changes. Burr? Maybe so. I'm not sure since I'm new to looking at edge images at this resolution. The light does funny things as I try to get a good focused shot.

In case anyone is wondering, I'm using a Celestron usb microscope. The resolution is maxed out at 150X for the pictures. Anyone have a usb electron microscope that I can borrow?

 

[Noctis3880]

Thank you very much. Looks like I'll be trying some 1Micron and .5Micron sprays



changeofseasons: Very interesting results, I must say. The frosted glass looks like it's giving the edge it's own finish on top of the Diamond's. I think I'm seeing a burr forming there :thumbup:

Which, IMO defeats the purpose of the diamond spray. A strop works well when the abrasives are no larger than a certain size. Since glass itself is harder than steel, the frosted glass might act like a 3 micron abrasive. Even with 1 micron diamond spray on it, it'll still behave like a 3 micron strop rather than a 1 micron.

With balsa wood, leather, and the honing film, even if the surface is textured, the abrasives in the medium should always be less than the abrasive you're using(I believe it's 0.1 micron for the silicates in leather).

 

[jimnolimit]

In case anyone is wondering, I'm using a Celestron usb microscope. The resolution is maxed out at 150X for the pictures. Anyone have a usb electron microscope that I can borrow?

i don't have an electron microscope, but the one hooked up to my computer goes up to 400x. after i get my stropping setup together (over the next week), i'll add the pics to my thread where i scoped paul pos treaded s30v at different grit levels. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=815399

p.s. i will add pics of the blade after 4000 grit king before the end of the weekend.

 

[jimnolimit]

Which, IMO defeats the purpose of the diamond spray. A strop works well when the abrasives are no larger than a certain size. Since glass itself is harder than steel, the frosted glass might act like a 3 micron abrasive. Even with 1 micron diamond spray on it, it'll still behave like a 3 micron strop rather than a 1 micron.

With balsa wood, leather, and the honing film, even if the surface is textured, the abrasives in the medium should always be less than the abrasive you're using(I believe it's 0.1 micron for the silicates in leather).

^ i agree. the hard glass might be skewing the results.


i've decided to make up a few strops, i plan on using:

3 micron diamond
1 micron diamond
0.5 chromium oxide (only for my newly acquired straight razor).
plain

 

[xtestifyx]

I agree, Noctis. It's counter-intuitive to use Glass with just the spray, at least with the amount of research I have done and seen so far

Jim, thank you for dedicating your time to provide us with more research. I appreciate it

 

[jimnolimit]

I agree, Noctis. It's counter-intuitive to use Glass with just the spray, at least with the amount of research I have done and seen so far

Jim, thank you for dedicating your time to provide us with more research. I appreciate it

your welcome.

i had an epiphany a little while ago. i was thinking about what would be a good leather substitute for a strop. leather has been used for 100's of years and it works good but with all the synthetic materials on the market, why not look for better. it hit me, im a printer by trade and the blankets we use (they transfer the ink from the aluminum printing plate to the paper) are better than leather in every way. the blankets are super durable, near perfect flatness and they are designed to hold ink (which is just a fine particle slurry). when i go to work tomorrow, i will try to get a large piece of the material from a discarded blanket. i plan on making a bunch of 3"x12" bench strops and a 3"x24" hanging strop. i will probably use 3/4" MDF to mount the material on. when i get my setup complete, i will make a full thread.

here is a pic of what the blanket material looks like:

 

[Jason B.]

Here's a little of my experiences with DMT and HA finishing compounds.

DMT.
A oil based paste that appears to be best used on blasa wood closely followed by MDF or other closed cell hardwoods. Difficult to spread especially on dry leather but easier to clean than water based compounds. Wooden strops show a larger and more appropriate scratch size for the stated grit, cutting speed is also much faster than with a leather strop. The finish being coarser with a wooden strop means at 1 micron the DMT paste is unable to produce a scratch free finish, close but it is still foggy. Finishing on leather however will produce a flawless finish by 1 micron so following the 1 micron balsa with a 1 micron leather strop is one way to make the most of your finish.

Because its a oil based compound it also never really dries and will leave a residue on the bevel. Always make sure to clean the bevel before moving to the next grit or you risk cross contamination. Cutting speed is good but at a guess I'd say its around 1 carat.

Handamerican diamond compounds.
My experience has only been with the 12 carat 1 & 0.5 micron compounds. The water based spray is by far the easiest way I have seen to apply a compound, but caution must be taken on wood or dry leather. You can curl, warp, and bubble a strop if sprayed too much. A way to get around those problems though is to only make a few sprays per application and hold 10+in away so the mist has more time to atomize. Cutting speed is obviously much faster and the 1 micron even on balsa produces a bright mirror finish, a slight scratch pattern can sometimes be seen but more often the finish will be scratchless.

Besides the speed I think the ability to have consistent and easily repeatable results is what makes the diamond compounds more desirable for me. Unlike other types of compounds the diamonds always have the same general effect and finished edge sharpness.

Sic, boron, chromium oxide.
The 2 micron silicon carbide is one I've been the least impressed with. It feels like a 2 micron edge but the scratch pattern is sharp and deep like a diamond hone. It also seems to take the 6 micron diamond to effectively remove the scratches left by the Sic, the 6 micron reduces edge sharpness and increases edge roughness but refines surface finish. Works well and is a fast cutting compound but not one that fits into my uses.

Boron carbide showed great results from the very start. It seemed to make the finish brighter and the edge have more bite. Not much to add to what I said previously except I really like it on my 1x30 belt sander. Quick to polish and a great final edge.

Chromium oxide.
Well, I'm pretty sure most anyone that has stropped has used some form of this compound. The HA chromium oxide is in its own league IMO, no green bar that I have used has ever come close to the level of polish or edge sharpness obtained by this compound. My main problem was that for several years I didn't understand its full potential because I didn't have the other compounds for a proper lead-in.

Carbon steels are where I have found it to be most effective espically when following after 0.5 diamond. Chromium oxide will smooth out a edge so any toothy bite left by the diamond will be replaced by a smoother bite and a greater degree of sharpness. For knives this is not much more than fun play but would be something useful for razor sharpening.

For me the 6&3 micron DMT and 1 micron HA compound is pretty much all I use. It does all I need for surface polishing and makes things sharper than I have a use for.

 

[jimnolimit]

knifenut, are the water based sprays just diamond powder and water or is it more than water? (something to aid in particle suspension).

have you worked with any of these abrasives in powder form? i am considering buying abrasives in pure powdered form and just making my own sprays/slurry.

 

[Jason B.]

No, never tried the powder. Don't really want to for the mess factor.

It has some sort of suspension material but it will separate if left to sit so the product must be shaken before use.

 

[jimnolimit]

No, never tried the powder. Don't really want to for the mess factor.

It has some sort of suspension material but it will separate if left to sit so the product must be shaken before use.

what step do you use before you go to 1 micron boron carbide or diamond?

on average, how many blades can you sharpen with 1 micron before you need to spray more diamond?

 

[Jason B.]

Just the 6 & 3 micron.

Never really counted but maybe 30-50, a large bottle has lasted me about 3 years and I've used it for many things.

 

[handamerican]

Wow! lotsa good stuff going on with this thread.

First, thanks to all for discussing HA products here, I'm glad to read that some of them work for you and you're getting the results that you're after. There are a myriad of products of this ilk available and I really appreciate your giving ours a shot.

Now the honing film - this is a type of backing material that we looked at when we produced our own fine grit honing papers years ago. We ended up coating a different material but what I liked about this film was the capillary action that provided a strong surface tension for attaching the film to glass using just a few drops of water.

For years we worked with PSA backed papers and they were fine until it came time to switch papers - scraping and cleaning the glass was a chore and this seemed to be a suitable replacement.

If you do use the film a little rub with a glue stick along the perimeter of the glass along with a drop or two of water will hold it in place. Bear in mind this was meant to be used for final polishing and not edge creation. If you are inclined to have a heavy hand it might not stand up to the pressure that you apply. I use it with compounds and diamond on straight razors, the jury may still be out when it comes to knives.

What is it? I don't know, sounds odd but it often happens where a supplier just won't divulge the nature of the product. You can call it a polymer with micro pockets I guess, mylar is a generic term but if you were to shop for it that may give you a start.

The subject of etched glass was touched on a bit. We sold an etched glass years ago that worked very well with mid range compounds (220 - 600) but as time went on and people began to use finer compounds the depth of the etching proved counter productive. Etching depths of .030+ do not work with sub micron materials. At the moment we are working on producing glass plates with etching at .010 and under which should work nicely with our full range of abrasives.

Our main distributor, Chefknivestogo.com is now a member of Bladeforums (gold or Plat.) which I'm pretty sure allows me and anyone else to mention them here as a source for fine knives and many knife related products including a full range of Japanese stones and equipment such as the Wicked Edge machine which I think is a pretty cool device.

I'll read this thread again and if I can help in any way I will. jimnolimit mentioned offset printing blanket material which I think may have some merit as an alternative to leather. More often than not leather is not required when using compounds. A good honing leather should stand on it's own.

If any of you folks are planning on experimenting with that material I hope you post your findings.

I do a lot of leather cutting, I'm thinking of using it as a cutting mat similar to the ''self healing' types that can be kind of pricey. I'll let you know about that.

Can't thank you guys enough for your support,
Keith

 

[Noctis3880]

Its not very good.

S90V was the steel that made me switch to diamond compounds. The difference was night and day, when I first tried stropping S90V on chromium oxide I spent hours and made no progress. When the diamond compound arrived it was a matter of minutes before I was done and was astonished by the level of polish and excellent sharpness. I've been saying it for a while but..... diamond compounds polish better and yield sharper edges with modern steels. I feel chromium oxide and like compounds have their place but its just not with these steels.


Now for the original question. I was contacted my Keith from HA a few months back for some product testing. Among the items he sent were a package of honing films, these films seemed like a great idea at first but I quickly ran into problems. The films themselves are a thin but tough plastic material that has a frosted surface to better hold the compound (my guess). I first tried the films with 1 micron HA diamond compound, because the films were not easily cut I could use both edge leading and edge trailing strokes without worry. I started with 5-6 forward and back strokes on one side and was amazed by the speed but a little confused by the somewhat larger scratch pattern. I had suspicion the film had some abrasive action but continued testing 0.5 diamond, 1 micron boron carbide, 2 micron silicon carbide, and 0.5 micron chromium oxide. I knew something was wrong after the testing because all the compounds produced the exact same scratch pattern. I finally tried the films bare and discovered them to leave a scratch pattern in the 3-5 micron range. Its not a normal scratch though and looks more like what you would find with a natural waterstone.

I reported all my findings to Keith but didn't get a report back, this was several months ago so a product change could have been made. Its a great product idea but I think the frosted surface resulted in abrasive action. Noctis3880, when you get yours I too would like to hear your results.

I just got the films in today and tried stropping on them without any abrasives. I did notice a loud scraping sound, but I couldn't spot any scratches and it didn't seem to dull the edge I finished with 1 micron DMT paste. Though admittedly, the edge didn't seem any sharper after stropping with the 0.5 micron diamond spray, but I just attribute that to the fact that stropping has never seemed to give me a sharper edge(which I assume means I need more practice).

 

[Jason B.]

If the edge is already mirror polished try the film bare. That's how I discovered it.