What Is Your Favorite Diamond Paste?

Razor

Razor

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Dec 8, 1999
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I would like to try some on a basswood block. A buddy of mine show me one of his folders that his buddy had sharpened with a strop I guess and it was like a razor. I can't wait to get some and try on my knives.
 
Hard to say it's my favorite because it's the only one I've tried. Tech Diamond. I got the kit with a double-sided leather strop and 4000 grit, 8000 grit, 50,000 grit tubes. Also a micro fiber cloth. It's easy to apply and works well. I hope some other folks will chime in.
 
I have been using STROPPY Stuff. Made in the UK. It is the only one I have used. It seem to polish the knives quickly. I have it in 6, 1, 0.5 and 0.25 micron. I purchased it through Gritomatic.
 
I've had good results from diamond paste compounds made by/for Chef Knives to Go (Japanese kitchen knife website). I've only used it on basswood blocks. They also offer spray emulsions, too.
 
I have had great results with the Venev compounds, I prefer them over others that I have tried.
 
I use Bark River CBN Emulsion 16 Micron on the rough side of the strop - 4 Micron on the smooth - some of the best I have used. Easy to apply. Knives Shipped Free in Tennessee has it.
 
I like emulsions better, either Stroppy Stuff or Gunny Juice. However Stroppy Stuff is cheaper. I've tried a couple pastes before but no matter how I applied them (with heat or without) they always ended up being really gummy more often than not.
 
Hedonizmdan said:
I have had great results with the Venev compounds, I prefer them over others that I have tried.
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I bought a lip balm tube of it several years ago and the diamonds just seemed to clump up in places on the leather strop. Then I let it sit in my home office which is air conditiones, and most of it melted and pooled outside the tube on the shelf.

Now you can't get any.

Also, Gunny Juice has not been in stock when I looked
 
I have used a dmt .5 micron spray on balsawood and a dmt 3 micron paste on balsawood. The .5 micron strop is smooth to glide the knife across, easy to keep the bevel where it needs to be. and very effective. It makes it stupid sharp in just a few passes.

The 3 micron, im sure it works, I honestly don't know if I needed it or not. The .5 was doing what I needed. But I got the 3 micron anyhow. It is noticeably stickier and is a paste on top of the wood. There's significant resistance to sliding the knife across and due to the paste I have a harder time seeing and feeling the bevel being at the right angle. It will not get my knives to that stupid easily push cutting any paper I want kind of sharp. For that I have to go finish with the .5 micron. Or I can skip the 3 micron altogether and go straight to .5 off the stones.

Those are my only 2 stropping experiences. But I would recommend a diamond spray on balsa or bass wood. I just used a 12" piece of mdf baseboard to glue the balsawood piece to.
 
Mr.Wizard said:
Which others have you tried?
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I have tried the gunny juice spray emulsion, the jende spray emulsion, a set of 3 pastes that came in the syringe style applicators from Amazon, and some other brand paste that I cannot recall the name brand of at themoment. Not sure if it matters but I have the larger bottles of the venev pastes, very small amount needed smear it around then hit with my heat gun. Works great in my opinion, and I am able to get nice even coverage on my strops. Never had an issue with it being gummy or clumps. Works great for me.
 
I use the Venev paste on leather strops. I use a heat gun after smearing it on with a popsicle stick to melt the carrier and let it soak into the leather and spread out the diamonds. Works great, even on Elmax, S90V, Magnacut, 20CV, and every steel I have tried it on! I use 14 and 3 micron, but also have some 40 micron and 1 micron I need to put onto leather.

I have used CBN from Bark River and CKTG as well as diamond sprays from CKTG and Ken Schwartz. The Venev seems to work better and faster to prep the strop (don't need to wait days to dry). I had sprays down to 1/4 micron, but in regular use, I rarely even use the 1 micron stuff. The 14 micron/3 micron combo I use now works really well for my stuff.
 
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Taz said:
I use the Venev paste on leather strops. I use a heat gun after smearing it on with a popsicle stick to melt the carrier and let it soak into the leather and spread out the diamonds. Works great, even on Elmax, S90V, Magnacut, 20CV, and every steel I have tried it on! I use 14 and 3 micron, but also have some 40 micron and 1 micron I need to put onto leather.
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I don't think 40µ will work well on leather, by which I mean I don't think it will cut at all like 40µ particles should, as they'll just sink in. At these sizes tin, copper, or even cast iron would not be inappropriate, but hardwood is probably a good place to start.
 
I can also put it onto some micarta maybe to see how it does. I will start with some scrap leather and see what it does. I was very pleased with the 14 micron on leather. I had tried 16 micron CBN on balsa and it clumped up badly and didn't want to dry at all. It was better on leather, but was slower than the diamond.
 
Will do! I am trying to come up with ways for non knife nuts to sharpen/maintain super steels in the field easily, or get them functional again. A small Leather or micarta strop is easy to throw in a pack, pocket, etc. and can work pretty well.

I tried some home made micarta as a strop years ago and it worked great and deburred very fast, but left a rougher edge due to it being more of a camo pattern and using different fabrics. I want to try with straight layered stuff this time and then try compounds on it too. Home made micarta has a fuzzier feel to it at lower grits than true phenolics, so think of a suede leather feel to the very top layer of the micarta and typical micarta hardness under it.
 
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