Thread: Grit size of industrial buffing compound?

While waiting for my Dovo to arrive and get sent out for honing, I’ve been playing around with an el-cheapo razor I bought on ebay a month ago (before I found srp and knew better). For less than $10, incl shipping, it’s a piece of Pakistani junk.

Anyway, even though I don’t have a hone or strop, I’ve gotten it to pass the HHT and have even shaved my cheeks with it ( I daren’t go further). I “honed” it ( and I use the term lightly) with a small “India Medium Oilstone” I found in my toolbox and then stropped it on newspaper. But what seemed to really do the trick is that I rubbed green buffing compound on the paper first, and then did it again on a fresh paper with red buffing compound.

The compounds were in a buffing kit from Harbor Freight, the green one was labeled for stainless steel, and the red one was supposedly jewelers rouge.

I was really dumbfounded that it passed HHT, but I’m just wondering if anyone knows the grit size of green/red etc buffing compounds? I’ve tried google, but no luck, and I’m pretty sure that the colors are somewhat standard. How do these grit sizes compare with the chromium oxide or diamond paste sold as strop paste?

(don’t worry, I won’t be using this crude method on the Dovo!)

It's difficult to give a ball-park figure on the micron size of the compounds, because they vary so much. Presumably the green one contains chrome oxide and the red one contains jewellers rouge, but both will contain waxes, fillers and other abrasives, like aluminium oxide, which can be ultra fine or very coarse. Even the micron size of the CrOx and jewellers rouge varies a lot. Some manufacturers make a range of bars - green for example, all using the same CrOx, but with different amounts in each bar, so the bars will cost different amounts and will have varying degrees of cutting power.

The green bar (probably!) contains CrOx, but the micron size of it could vary from quite coarse all the way down to 0.5 micron. And then, even if it is really fine, what is the grit size of the other abrasives in the bar? 1.0 micron? 0.05 micron? Who knows!

Not all compounds are suitable for carbon steel - take the red bar for instance. Just because it is red or called rouge doesn't mean that it is jewellers rouge necessarily. The old red compound - crocus - was used for iron or steel, whereas proper jewellers rouge is so fine (say around 3.5 to 0.3 micron) that it will only be good for precious metals and won't touch steel.

Generally speaking, people concur that 0.5 is great for CrOx powder, and diamond pastes can be used in series of 1.0 micron (or larger) down to 0.25 micron.

BTW: the colors of compound bars aren't any indication of any type of standard. Also, I would imagine that the edge you put on the razor is very coarse - good enough to pop hairs (even lowly 1000 grit stones and others can do this when setting a bevel) and that the compounds you used did very little to the edge - there is just too much of a jump between them and the (not recommended) hone. Perhaps a few days worth of using compund on newspaper might make a difference - maybe not!

Regards,
Neil.