Upgrade Stones for High Carbide Steels

[maximus83]

If looking to maintain a relatively toothy 10µ finish on an edge, or anything coarser, I'd minimize stropping with compound in the first place. Instead, do as much refining on your finishing hone (DMT EF?) as possible; then, if doing any stropping at all, either do it without compound, or choose a less-aggressive compound better suited to only stripping away burrs, and not polishing so much. In other words, a compound that's enough to remove just the weakened remnants on the edge, but won't do too much beyond that. Sometimes, even something like green compound, with a minimum of stropping passes, is enough to do that, even on high-VC steels. But, having said that, I'd still focus on doing as much as you can on the hones, and minimizing stropping beyond that.

Coarser compounds will still tend toward refining or polishing the finish, when used on a substrate that's not very hard (leather, wood, etc), because they'll cut less deeply from the softer substrate than their rated grit would imply. Even more so, if the strop is then used for most or all of the followup maintenance. If a coarse compound were used atop a very hard backing, such as a piece of paper atop a stone, it'll cut deeper to create a more toothy finish. But at that point, you'd do just as well to do as much refining on the stone anyway, if you're wanting to preserve the toothy bite it gives to the edge.


David

David thanks for that, you've posted this before and I do see some value in trying this no compound stropping to preserve the toothy edge. Dang there are SO many approaches to stropping it blows my mind. I think I will try alternating sharpening on DMT coarse with a few cheap Chinese-made folders, following the coarse by either strop + 1 micron, or strop with no compound. So basically the contrast is: polish the tooth, or don't polish the tooth.

Just recently I’ve ordered some diamond pastes from gritomatic and they seem to be a good quality for the price.
I got 1 micron and 60 micron, they only listed 1,40, and 60, and I’ve been using the pastes on an old Washita and a 3x8 steel plate.

So far I’ve only tried s110v and s30v but this method is giving nice feedback and a very nice refined edge.

The finest grit I have is .25 micron but I need to find that as I haven’t messed with these lately.

Besides the gritomatic I have the 3 DMT and a couple no name pastes.
Can anyone recommend some good quality pastes in the .5-10 micron range?

Will, FWIW the gritomatic CBN compound has been effective for me. Have only been using for a month or two, but tried the 1 and 3 micron sizes, both worked well. Also this stuff is cost-effective for the amount you get per oz and the amount it takes to embed in a strop; I'd say a little more cost-effective than diamonds and that's the idea with using CBN. The things I don't know yet: does it put as good a quality polish/finish as the diamond pastes do, and does it last as long on your strop? Don't know, and don't know. I'm HOPING that because Gritomatic is the producer of this compound, it's good quality and will hold up well.

As for smaller micron diamond pastes, one company I've tried that was fairly cost-effective was Kent Supplies. I've been using the 10 micron, but they have most of the grits you are seeking and are more cost-effective per oz than say DMT pastes. I honestly can't say if they're "as good" tho as I've done no testing, so YMMV.

http://kentsupplies.com/beading-and-jewelry-tools/polishing-paste/oil-based-lapping-paste/