Thread: Other abrasives? (ideas/comments)

Having read through many of the amazing articles on honing and stropping in the library here I was thinking about some of the less orthodox abrasives I've seen mentioned. Things like newspaper, ash, chalk, and so on. It lead me to wonder if anyone has ever made an effort to compile a list of such things. After all if you want feedback on honing on a Norton stone, or stropping with diamond paste or crox it's simple enough to find it. However if one wants to know about people's experience with things like ash, newspaper, various types of rouge and other less common polishing compounds it's a little more difficult.

Simply put I'm looking to get feedback and comments on peoples experience with more abstruse or unusual abrasives. As well as hopefully getting comments about peoples experiments with other, perhaps heretofore unmentioned methods, products, and so on.

To provide an example the other night my wife had been filing her nails and left a rectangular, four-sided nail buffer on the table. I had just been thinking about honing and stropping, and when I saw it I decided to give it a shot and see how it performed. I didn't have a razor I was willing to try it on, but with a knife blade the surfaces of the abrasive pads wore away quickly when I tried to hone with it. Even so they gave results. More than that the two softer, polishing surfaces were so interesting to play with I'm going to buy a few of these and see how they work on a razor-blade as they really did polish up the knife edge brilliantly, even in my amateurish hands.

That made me wonder what else I could try, and I promptly thought of an abrasive polishing cloth (a jewelers cloth) that I had. I'm thinking of tacking, sewing or otherwise fixing it to a length of glass or tile and try honing/stropping with it. I can't claim either of these are great ideas. I'm nowhere near experienced enough to gauge the results in contrast to the many different means of polishing and the like, but experimentation is always fun.

Anyway that's enough about my experience. I'm really more interested in hearing about other peoples finds, or attempts to use some of these less talked about things. That, and how they feel such things stack up compared to more common approaches.

I was trying to learn to use my norton 4/8k tonight and I was thinking along these same lines. I was wondering what would happen if you used a paint polishing compound to make a pasted strop. The abrasive in meguiars compounds and polishes is aluminum oxide. Not sure of the micron size, but it brings a nice shine to paint. This is one of the products I'm thinking of: http://www.meguiars.com/en/professio...g-polish-32oz/

I doubt that emery boards, and other odd abrasives will ever be worthwhile but it might be fun to read the results of your tests.

More proven methods are also cheap and easy. And like you say; there is a TON of info on the N4/8, Cro-ox, diamond paste, etc.

Michael

What you saying sounds like good fun but has one fatal flaw which is the reason nobody ever tried these honing methods with any great deal of success....

The reason is the out side of the box methods and products you bring up and specifically design for materials other then metal so they break down very fast making it not practice for honing.

Also a women's nail file is typically padded at the base. Honing on a soft surface will with our a doubt lead to convexing of the bevel and would ultimately ruin the keen edge. That means you would have to reset the bevel before you can move on...

Also a soft abrasive surface may very well get sliced up when pushing a sharp blade against it.

Some people use lapping tape on a piece of glass... IMO that's about as out side of the box you can go an get desired results.

Makes a fun project though!

Most metal polishes are a combination of abrasives, probably cerium, iron oxide and aluminum oxide. The better ones are very fine.

I have stropped on metal polish for years with great results, Mass and Semi Chrome on a nylon strop will remove all stria at 400 x and leave a very nice comfortable edge.

The easiest and most comfortable edge producing paste I have found is CBN. Used in progression of Chrome Oxide, CBN .50 and .125 will leave a smooth keen edge that can be maintained for a long, long time with .125 CBN.

You can strop daily on .10 CBN and shave off the CBN strop, no leather.

But like you I am still looking at other paste, I just received some pigments from Kremer Pigments that I am testing and am photographing for a post on the results.

I've wondered how a jewelers red rouge would work with stropping.

Newspaper works very well and can be fashioned easily into either a hanging strop or a bench style strop, it is also a very good test bed for other mediums.. I have never been a proponent of using a balsa strop, in fact I find them to be "Too Effective" they tend to bring out a harsh edge, but trying different pastes etc: on a Newspaper strop gives a good indication of how it would work on leather before committing a leather strop to that medium..

I messed with Wood Ash and Lamp Black and honestly other then being messy they work very well and give a very Smooth feel to the edge..

I have used Flitz and Simichrome on a linen strop in the distant past and I felt it improved the edge..

There are very few pastes and potions I haven't tried and honestly I pretty much use two any longer, both are 99.99% pure which IMHO is very important,, CrOx and CeOx are my goto strop pastes now-a-days in that order at about 80/20... I also feel that pastes work best on a bench strop but I have no proof of why I just get my best results off them..

possibly since it is still technically Part of honing a flat backed surface produces more consistency. versus a flexible surface. one of the reasons we suggest to hold the linen and leather on a strop together versus letting one hang down. could be wrong but just my reasoning.

As said the problem with many of these fine abrasives like soot and chalk is they are not processed for grit size in use, there are some abrasives like pigments that are screened, but for other uses and the quality control is suspect as they are designed for other purposes.
Look at Chromium Oxide and the varying degree of particle size and added abrasives for speed of cut.

In the case of Chromium Oxide many are formulated for polishing and or finishing the edge of cutting tools like wood working tools where the edge keenness is sacrificed for speed of cut.

Only a select few are consistently fine or pure enough for razor stropping.

Many of the Nail Polishing sticks are Diamond on a foam stick or block and can be reproduced with Diamond paste on craft foam with good results.

I have stropped on 4 mm craft foam (about ¼ inch) and have not experienced edge rounding. A better substrate is paper or nylon, nylon holds the paste nicely for a combination of cutting and polishing.

BTW 4mm foam is a great surface for hand sanding and polishing a razor as the pressure buries the edge in the foam allowing the user to sand or polish right up to the edge safely. It also protects the razor from scratching and breakage.

So the problem with abrasives in the wild becomes consistent and repeatable particle size, but it is addicting and I find myself looking at powders, pastes and flat smooth surfaces as potential stropping mediums.

You are not alone.

Kind of a what is on the other side of the hill, and the greener grass on the other side if the fence combined. I like it too. Been trying soapstone lately on my C12.