Which of these compounds should I use with 2x42 leather belt??

BryFry

BryFry

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I have a leather belt for my Craftsman 2x42 beltsander. I haven't used it yet, but thought I'd play around with convexing some edges on some cheep knives. (I've had great results convexing by hand with paper and strop, but I just want to see how well the 2x42 works.)

I already own a couple bars of black and green craftsman brand "buffing" compound for buffing wheels. These are hard chalky compounds made for high speed buffer wheels.

And I also own the much softer Bark River/knivesshipfree brand "stropping" compounds (black and green). These are softer, waxier compounds made for leather hand strops.

I realized there may be better choices out there, but I don't want to order more compounds right now. So of those four choices which would you suggest I use for my leather belt on a high speed sander??
 
If I only had one belt to load with those choices, I'd use the Bark River green compound. It will do a very fine job of taking off the burr and putting a finished edge on for you. I use EconAbrasive's house brand myself, the "extra-fine" green, then the white. I've been told that comes out to about 15K and 30K respectively, although I have no verification on that. Leaves a mirrored, viciously sharp edge though! I suspect the BRKT stuff will work just fine, and probably load on the belt a lot easier. Remember, you need very little of it on the belt, don't over-do it!

I think you'll be really pleased with the belt, my personal preference for convexing is to sharpen in the slack, about a half-inch above the platen where the belt still has a bit of support. Grab a couple cheap-o kitchen knives to play with first, they're good, easy, and expendable. I got my practice stock at the local Good Will store.
 
Virtuovice, a Japanese man on Youtube.com who convex-es almost every single knife he owns, says the finest one is the Bark River white compound. The next finest one, according to virtuovice, is the green and then obviously the black compound which is rough. He has videos of the performance and he also checks the edge on a microscope.
Hope I helped.
 
It goes white, black, green for coarse to fine. Green is the finest and is chromium oxide, a green pigment with a average size of 0.5-1.0 microns. though green is most common I would recommend the black compound, it should be boron carbide with a 1.0-2.0 micron size. Boron carbide (black compound) will cut hard metals quickly and leave a very fine mirror polished edge.
 
Thanks. Yeah I was leaning towards the green stropping compound, so that sounds pretty good.
 
In my experience, 1.0 or .5 micron (or finer) diamond or CBN is far superior to those listed above. Were I limited to one leather belt, I would use .125 CBN spray exclusively.

www.chefknivestogo.com

Click on "Ken's corner" in the supplier's menu. :thumbup::thumbup:

It's a bit pricey, but a bottle lasts forever.
 
bark river compound as listed form web site DLT Trading
black 3,000 grit
green 6,000 grit
white 12,0000 grit
I bought Econs EXTRA, EXTRA Fine green compound. They said they did not know the grit level of there compounds that they sell. Econ does not make compound, sell as a courtesy to customers. I am still waiting on a email about there grit levels.
I have a 1x30 inch belt sander and one leather belt for it with the extra, extra fine compound. This compound is hard, I used a hair dryer to apply to belt and a chrome tanned strop, chrome side up. This did not take very well to strop. Already glued a new piece of chrome tanned leather to 1x3x12 inch with the chrome side down. chrome side is just to slick.
I would like to know the grit of the Extra, extra fine compound from econ?
 
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