Micron Diamond Spray? What kind to use

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Mtty22

Joined
Mar 1, 2013
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I heard about this diamond spray for strops and I heard about how good it works. So I was thinking about trying it out. I just don't know what micron number I need for my knives. So that I won't do any damage or use a stronger micron than I need. My knives are listed below.

Spyderco caly 3 - ZDP-189

Spyderco sage - CPM-S30V
 
That's sort of up to you. It depends on your other sharpening methods and how sharp your knife is when you move to the strop. I use a Sharpmaker for the actual touchup and then finish with a strop. For that, I use 1 micron spray on a balsa wood strop. That doesn't give me a highly polished edge, but it does give me a great cutting edge that's useful on a variety of materials.

If you only want to use a strop for your edge, then you'll need a couple of different ones so you can do more serious work with a coarser spray or compound and then refine the edge with the finer 1.0 or .5 micron strop & spray. If you're only going to strop, I'd stay on top of the edge real close, esp with ZDP189. It'll touch up for you a lot easier than it'll come back from being dull.
 
Agree. 1 Micron spray is most noticeable after using as a final step. You can go down to 0.5 Micron and it will make a difference but not as great as the 1 Micron and you need to do the 1 Micron first in my experience. The 0.5 just isn't aggressive enough. I also have the Hand America spray and really happy with it. My bottles are going to last a really long time. Since I was paying shipping already I went ahead and got both sizes. I'm not sure they sell anything bigger but DMT does as a paste. I have never tried a bigger size so can't comment on how they work but the two I mentioned work great for stropping.
 
Ask your question on the Maintainance(sp), embellishment and ...... forum. That is the forum for questions like yours. Lots of great guys to help out there.
 
dalefuller said:
That's sort of up to you. It depends on your other sharpening methods and how sharp your knife is when you move to the strop. I use a Sharpmaker for the actual touchup and then finish with a strop. For that, I use 1 micron spray on a balsa wood strop. That doesn't give me a highly polished edge, but it does give me a great cutting edge that's useful on a variety of materials.

If you only want to use a strop for your edge, then you'll need a couple of different ones so you can do more serious work with a coarser spray or compound and then refine the edge with the finer 1.0 or .5 micron strop & spray. If you're only going to strop, I'd stay on top of the edge real close, esp with ZDP189. It'll touch up for you a lot easier than it'll come back from being dull.
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is there a particular strop you have to use for these sprays? I have a regular 2 sided leather strop coarse and fine. would that work ok?
 
For using a couple of different compounds, the two-sided strops would work if you need to save $ or space. I'm kinda partial to one tool doing one thing, so I'd probably get a couple of single sided leather strops and use one separate one for each compound. I use a balsa wood strop for my diamond spray. I like it and I get better results than I do with my leather strops. It's a bit less soft than leather... has less "give" to the surface so I don't run as much of a risk of rounding an edge when I'm stropping. Leather will work fine. You just have to adjust your technique and pressure to the surface of the strop you're using.
 
dalefuller said:
For using a couple of different compounds, the two-sided strops would work if you need to save $ or space. I'm kinda partial to one tool doing one thing, so I'd probably get a couple of single sided leather strops and use one separate one for each compound. I use a balsa wood strop for my diamond spray. I like it and I get better results than I do with my leather strops. It's a bit less soft than leather... has less "give" to the surface so I don't run as much of a risk of rounding an edge when I'm stropping. Leather will work fine. You just have to adjust your technique and pressure to the surface of the strop you're using.
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Does the Balsa strop have to be plain to use the diamond spray? or can the strop have chromium oxide paste already on it?
 
Mtty22 said:
Does the Balsa strop have to be plain to use the diamond spray? or can the strop have chromium oxide paste already on it?
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If you cross contaminate your strops you will never remove the scratches from the higher grits.

Balsa strops are dirt cheap to make so use a different one for each compound and clean your blade between each one. I use water and just wipe it off.
 
TriviaMonster said:
If you cross contaminate your strops you will never remove the scratches from the higher grits.

Balsa strops are dirt cheap to make so use a different one for each compound and clean your blade between each one. I use water and just wipe it off.
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Yes, correct. Use a different strop for each compound / spray you want to use. You can color code the bottom sides to make sure you don't mix them up. Not a good idea to combine different abrasive mediums on the same strop.
 
TriviaMonster said:
If you cross contaminate your strops you will never remove the scratches from the higher grits.

Balsa strops are dirt cheap to make so use a different one for each compound and clean your blade between each one. I use water and just wipe it off.
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Thanks for the info. But if they are dirt cheap to make I wish I knew how to make one. I am about to buy one on eBay for $15 unless I learn how to make one.
 
Mtty22 said:
Thanks for the info. But if they are dirt cheap to make I wish I knew how to make one. I am about to buy one on eBay for $15 unless I learn how to make one.
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Well, you go to the hardware store and buy a .5"x36" piece of wood. Cut in to the desired length and spray or apply your compound. Pretty simple. You can always search www.google.com or www.youtube.com for "how to make a strop" or "how to make a balsa wood strop".
 
RevDevil said:
Well, you go to the hardware store and buy a .5"x36" piece of wood. Cut in to the desired length and spray or apply your compound. Pretty simple. You can always search www.google.com or www.youtube.com for "how to make a strop" or "how to make a balsa wood strop".
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Yup, that's exactly what I did.

One note: Use a razor blade or Exacto hobby knife to cut the balsa. If you use a thicker blade it will start to split apart rather than cut. Take your time.

I have enough balsa left for about 15 more strops all for about $10 including an Exacto knife. No need to buy one online when its this easy.
 
A hacksaw blade with high TPI also works. Tape off the area to be cut, then start cutting.
 
Not to thread jack, but do you guys sand down the balsa to any specific grit? Balsa turns pretty fuzzy when you leave it in the lower grits ~400ish. Would this fuzz act like the nap on a piece of leather does? Or is it better to sand to 1000+ grit?
 
I don't sand the balsa. After a couple uses it smooths out nicely. Plus I only strop with 0.5u oxide and not bare. I don't use it for straight razors so I never felt the need to strop bare.
 
Mine was a commercial balsa strop from HandAmerica. IIRC, it felt "natural" when it arrived, i.e. it did have a bit of a fuzzy feel to it. And the surface did "settle down" after a few uses. I use it with the 1 micron diamond spray.
 
Is Balsa suitable for convex edges?

I wanna strop my blades which I have sharpened on a worksharp, I dunno if I should go with leather or if Balsa would be O.K as the worksharp puts convex edges onto the blades.
 
I do stay with leather for my BRKT and Alan Davis knives. Those are convexed and the green CrO2 leather strop and bare leather strop do fine with them. I don't give them any really hard use or I'd have to get another couple of strops and go to a coarser medium. I'd still stay with leather for those convexed edges, though. The balsa strop is used on my straight beveled Spydercos and Benchmades.
 
Thanks Dale,

So does that then mean that diamond spray is not an option and I'd have to use diamond paste instead, or can I go ahead and use the spray on leather? I know people use it on kangaroo leather but I don't have a roo leather strop, my strop is 3mm cow hide.
 
For covex get some high grit compound and use a mouse pad for the backing. I out the compound directly on the mouse pad. Balsa doesn't have quite enough give for convex edges I found.
 
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