Stroping Cardboard or Leather....

J

JackBauer24

Joined
Mar 13, 2006
Messages
850
I've been using a lot of cardboard with jewelers rouge. Honestly I can't tell a whole lot of difference, it may even be better. If anything, I like it because after a few goes I can toss it out. No cleaning, no waiting for it to dry.

pro's and con's?
 
you should check into the cardboard wheels, you would notice a difference then. all of my knives will shave you. i can sharpen a super dull knife in a matter of minutes. check out the link to the short video at my website.
 
Ben Dover said:
Jeweler's rouge is iron oxide. You must be using some mighty soft steel!
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Many people have and do use jeweler's rouge for stropping with great results. They must all be wrong? It was the first thing I used to load up a strop with and it worked just fine on leather and cardboard for a wide variety of steels.
 
morrowj_98 said:
Many people have and do use jeweler's rouge for stropping with great results. They must all be wrong? It was the first thing I used to load up a strop with and it worked just fine on leather and cardboard for a wide variety of steels.
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:thumbup::thumbup: I usually do 70ish strokes per side and usually twice per side and I'm done. With a little time and a good bevel you can get one hair popping sharp.

I need that link to the "sharpening ninja" thread in here. I learned more in that thread than anything ever here about sharpening.
 
Well, if jeweler's rouge works so well, I wonder why Kieth at Handamerican bothers with SiC, CrO and diamond pastes? :confused:
 
Ben Dover said:
Well, if jeweler's rouge works so well, I wonder why Kieth at Handamerican bothers with SiC, CrO and diamond pastes? :confused:
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From what I have seen and read there are many ways to sharpen a blade. I use white and red compounds from Sears. I think they are what you would categorize as rouge.

WHat is different between polishing compounds like the white, red and blue "crayons" that I have in my kit and the SiC, CrO and diamond pastes and powders?

Aren't they all a fine abrasive suspended in a substrate?

They would only differ in the size of the abrasive and the amount. That would regulate how fast or slow they cut and how deep the scratches are that are left behind. You want something that is going to basically polish out the scratches left behind by the stones. When you graduate from coarser to finer stones you are basically grinding away deeper scratches and leaving smaller ones until you get to the finer compounds on your strop to polish them away.
 
Ben Dover said:
Well, if jeweler's rouge works so well, I wonder why Kieth at Handamerican bothers with SiC, CrO and diamond pastes? :confused:
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do you drive a car? why? a horse or bicycle are both transportation. you drive a car because it gets you there faster...but the horse or bicycle will still get you there. clearly diamond paste will perform better but that doesn't mean jewler's rouge doesn't work at all.
 
Hard H2O said:
From what I have seen and read there are many ways to sharpen a blade. I use white and red compounds from Sears. I think they are what you would categorize as rouge.

WHat is different between polishing compounds like the white, red and blue "crayons" that I have in my kit and the SiC, CrO and diamond pastes and powders?

Aren't they all a fine abrasive suspended in a substrate?

They would only differ in the size of the abrasive and the amount. That would regulate how fast or slow they cut and how deep the scratches are that are left behind. You want something that is going to basically polish out the scratches left behind by the stones. When you graduate from coarser to finer stones you are basically grinding away deeper scratches and leaving smaller ones until you get to the finer compounds on your strop to polish them away.
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Well, the reason that people normally recommend SiC, CrO, CBN, or diamonds is because all those are very hard particles (compared to steel) where traditional jeweler's rouge is actually softer than most steels. This is good for polishing gold/silver, but not so great for polishing steel.

EX: For polishing wood, would you rather use a piece of leather that's had some very fine sand rubbed into it, or one that has had some raspberry jelly rubbed into it? They're both abrasive, it's just that the sand will cut a lot faster than the raspberry seeds. Same how diamonds will cut steel faster than iron oxide.
 
the_mac said:
Well, the reason that people normally recommend SiC, CrO, CBN, or diamonds is because all those are very hard particles (compared to steel) where traditional jeweler's rouge is actually softer than most steels. This is good for polishing gold/silver, but not so great for polishing steel.

EX: For polishing wood, would you rather use a piece of leather that's had some very fine sand rubbed into it, or one that has had some raspberry jelly rubbed into it? They're both abrasive, it's just that the sand will cut a lot faster than the raspberry seeds. Same how diamonds will cut steel faster than iron oxide.
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It seems that with the final hone in my kit the edge is fairly well polished. When I finish with the white and the red on leather (and I am only talking around 10 to 15 strokes per side per color so 40 to 60 strokes total) the edges I am getting are mirror polished. So it is working for me.

Not only does it work for me but the leather I am using cost me $2 total for enough to make about 4 plus strops and the two sticks of compound were less than $5 total. so for the stropping component of my system I am out of pocket around $7. I can also head to any Sears or Tandy and resupply.

I do not think I want to cut fast. I think I want to polish.
 
Red rouge is probably finer than any of the other rouges/compounds. It may cut slower, but it polishes finer/better.
Bill
 
Bill DeShivs said:
Red rouge is probably finer than any of the other rouges/compounds. It may cut slower, but it polishes finer/better.
Bill
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well someone gets it.

and just from personal experience, the jewelers rouge works faster and better than the red from sears.

Whatever, this wasn't suppose to be a debate on what compound I use, it was about leather and cardboard. As far as my sharpening skills, I'll gladly go head to head with someone who says jewelers rouge doesn't work. My hair whittling BM710D2 speaks for itself. So does my Socom elite D2.
 
My 710D-2, Spyderco CPM D-2, Spyderco S90V, and BM 610 Rukus, S30v will wiittle hair as well. So i guess my dumb .5 micron diamond paste must work also! :p
 
Ben Dover said:
My 710D-2, Spyderco CPM D-2, Spyderco S90V, and BM 610 Rukus, S30v will wiittle hair as well. So i guess my dumb .5 micron diamond paste must work also! :p
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I'm in no way saying it's dumb. If I did or implied that I'm sorry. But, I was basically being told that jewelers rouge didn't work. It works damn well.
 
Ben Dover said:
My 710D-2, Spyderco CPM D-2, Spyderco S90V, and BM 610 Rukus, S30v will wiittle hair as well. So i guess my dumb .5 micron diamond paste must work also! :p
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I don't think anyone was attacking your choice of polishing media. If anything jewlers rouge was the target of attacks.

There are a lot of ways to sharpen a knife.

Most start with an abrasive stone or ceramic or sandpaper and progress from coarse to finer grits.

Some stop there. Others progress to stropping on leather, cardboard, paper, glass...

Some use a strop plain with no compound, liquid, powder added.

Others apply different solid, liquid, powdered, gel...concoctions to their strop.

I am fairly new to sharpening but my system works for me, is relatively inexpensive, is easy to use, is easy to resupply.

Gatco from extra coarse to ultimate finishing hones, two leather strops from scrap Tandy pieces, white and red sticks from Sears, test by push cutting paper. That gets my blades very sharp at least compared to how I used to keep them. They are sharp enough and last long enough to suit me.
 
Hard H2O said:
I am fairly new to sharpening but my system works for me, is relatively inexpensive, is easy to use, is easy to resupply.
.
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that's a HUGE thing to me. This is one reason I was asking about the cons of cardboard. I own a shipping store, so I have endless amounts. lol.

I only go back to stones/sandpaper/lansky for New or chipped blades. Usually I can get it done with a strope

(Or with my leather belt on my 1x42 sander) ;):eek:
 
I haven't tried corrugated cardboard, but cardboard tablet backs and 6.0 and 2.5 micron SiC work pretty well as a field expedient. For me, at least! :p

And a 2 inch by 6 inch piece with 6.0 on one side and 2.5 on the other fits nicely in a plastic sandwich bag.

Even better, in my experience, is a paint stirring stick ( usually free from your paint store,) with leather on both sides. This also fits nicely in the plastic wrappers that newspapers use on rainy days.
 
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