Honing compound question

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Finn-lander

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Apr 12, 2008
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I recently picked up a 1"X42" belt sander and some leather belts for stropping. I have found a local tool equipment warehouse that is selling a "jewelers rouge". Would this be comparable to the Bark River "Green"? Also at Sears there is a four color "grinding wheel" set incl. Red, white, brown and black bars. Will these work for touching up, and stropping my knives or should I purchase something else? Thanks

Finn-lander
 
Finn, The jewelers rouge is finer than the green, more polish and slow . The brown or grey-black would come closer to giving you cutting and polishing characteristics on your strop . DM
 
"Green" chromium oxide compound is "the standard" for stropping as a final (or nearly final) step. Black compound is more coarse and will produce a less polished edge.

Supposedly red compound "won't cut steel", and it's intended for use on soft metals, which is why it's called "Jeweler's Rouge". There was a long discussion about it a while back. The consensus seemed to be that it works slowly on steel, so unless it's used with power tools, it's not going to do much to steel. I've seen it work very well on a cloth wheel (not a flap wheel). I'm not sure how effective it would be on a powered leather belt.

I'd suggest getting green compound. It's cheap at hardware type stores. I paid $2 for a 4 oz stick at Northern Tool. I'm certain it's not as high quality (and fine) as the ones sold at these online specialty shops, but it works.

Brian.
 
Any time you use a wax based compound you are creating a wax barrier between the blade and the leather. This defeats the purpose of using a leather strop imho. You can get good results with a cloth belt.

I personally use diamond or chromium oxide paste. You can buy it from HandAmerican.com (you have to call them since they are currently updating their website) or you can buy some Hand American product at japaneseknifesharpening.com.

Both diamond spray and pure chromium oxide will embed into the leather and produce an excellent strop surface.

The compounds you mentioned seeing at Sears are not of a fine enough grit for me. The jewelers rouge isn't either and, as was previously mentioned, not good at working steel. Many people use Veritas honing compound or Micro-fine compound which advertises itself to be .5 micron. However this is deceptive too and you can read a good article on that here.

I use Micron or Trizact belts for sharpening on a belt sander. Both types of belts will sharpen down to 9 micron and get a finer cut than the Sears compounds. I then power strop with a leather belt loaded the Hand American products.
 
For the finest of the fine, go to an art supply shop and buy some chromium oxide pigment powder. It has the consistency of talcum powder, a little goes a verrrry long way, and is cheap as dirt. Good dirt, that is. Just don't try to put it on your strop in a windy room...

Stitchawl
 
The CrO2 powder is far superior to the stick, paste or liquid.

Also try CBN and diamond. Several orders of magnitude superior to chromium oxide and silicon carbide.

www.us-products.com
 
Crocus cloth is made with iron oxide, which is what is in jewelers rouge. Of course it will cut/polish steel.
 
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