Consumer Alert: Chromium oxide bars, or not?

Hey guys, I've had a recent experience that everyone here needs to know about. A few months ago, I was in the market for some chromium oxide, and I couldn't find anywhere that had the Hand American products in stock, so I researched on most of the major woodworking retailers online, and found that many of them sell bars of honing compound.

These bars are green and waxy looking, usually about five inches in length or so. Most of them look pretty much just like this:
http://www.woodcraft.com/images/products/85H28_230.jpg

They are typically advertised as being "Chromium Oxide" honing compound. I didn't like the fact that most of the places didn't give a particle size in microns, so I shopped around. I ended up with the "Veritas" honing compound sold by Lee Valley Tools, because of this sentence in the description on their website:

"It is primarily chromium oxide admixed with other fine abrasives (0.5 micron particle size) to give the best combination of cutting speed and fine finish."

0.5 micron is what I was shooting for, so I bought it and it was great for my kitchen knives (I got into straights from sharp kitchen knives... just a natural progression, I guess!).

When I started using it for straights, I got good shaves off of it, or so I thought. I would follow my Chinese 12k with the polishing compound on a paddle strop of my own making, and things were ok. After a while, I found myself enjoying my shaves right off of the 12k better than with the compound, and under the microscope, my bevels didn't look as smooth as what I found on the Tim Zowada pictures.

I emailed Lee Valley's customer service department, and asked for the Materials Safety Data Sheet on the compound, and they sent it to me, and it was VERY reavealing. The Veritas compound, which they advertise as "primarily chromium oxide" actually has the following composition as seen in the Green/Red box in the pic below.


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3151/...e24ff9ab_o.jpg



The veritas bar is between 50 and 60 percent Aluminum Oxide!!! So, the next question that came to mind was "Is the particle size held to .5 micron?" To find this out, I decided to contact Formax Manufacturing, the company that makes the honing compound (They also make the "Microfine" honing compound like you find at woodcraft.com). I emailed the customer service, and who replied but Andrew Johnston, whose name is on the MSDS sheet. I figured he would be the right guy to ask about the particle size of the abrasive.

Here is our email conversation:

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----- Original Message -----
From: ben R.
To: sales@formaxmfg.com
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2008 1:47 AM
Subject: Green rouge - particle size


Hi, I've purchased some of your green rouge sold under the "Veritas" brand at Lee Valley Tools. I understand that this is a special formulation of chromium oxide (20 - 30 percent), aluminum oxide (50 - 60 percent), triglycerides and animal fats (15 - 17 percent) and mineral wax (3 - 5 percent) as reported in the MSDS sheet.

I'd be very appreciative if you could tell me the particle size (in microns, preferably) of the aluminum oxide used in this product. I use this as the final step of honing straight razors and am curious about how fine the abrasive is. I am already aware that chromium oxide is typically 0.5 microns, I'm just wondering about the aluminum oxide.

Thanks for your time,

Benjamin B. Rivenbark
Ben325e@XXXXXX

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From: Andrew Johnston <sales@formaxmfg.com>
To: ben R. <ben325e@XXXXXX>
Sent: Friday, November 7, 2008 9:15:47 AM
Subject: Benjamin Rivenbark Re: Green rouge - particle size 11.7.08

DIV { MARGIN:0px;} Benjamin B. Rivenbark
Ben325e@XXXXX.com

The Green Honing compound does contains two different abrasives. One abrasive is a Calcined Alumina and the mesh size would be listed as -300. Actually that’s a trade determination that simply says nothing in the abrasive is coarser than 300 grit. However, that same specification would see fines in that same abrasive going all the way down to .5 micron. The Green compound is also composed of chromium oxide that has a particular affinity for buffing steels, especially stainless.

Andrew
sales@formaxmfg.com

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----- Original Message -----
From: ben R.
To: Andrew Johnston
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2008 1:07 PM
Subject: Re: Benjamin Rivenbark Re: Green rouge - particle size 11.7.08


Thanks for your reply, Andrew. Am I correct in understanding then that the Calcined Alumina could contain particles larger than .5 micron? For example, the green honing rouge from Mcmaster-Carr is listed in their catalog as having a 2 micron average particle size, and their bar is also Alumina and Chromium oxide.

-300 mesh indicates that each particle is .003333 inches or smaller, which leaves the largest particle that would pass through a 300 mesh screen 169 times larger than .5 microns.

Basically, I am trying to find out the largest particle contained in the green honing compound as distributed by Lee Valley tools. They advertise that the abrasives in their green bar are 0.5 micron or smaller, and it just doesn't seem correct to me, as I get a much finer finish on straight razors using other compounds. Also, when viewed under a microscope, the scratch pattern left by the Veritas honing compound is more significant than one would expect when compared to other abrasives, such as the Shapton 30000 grit ceramic hone, which has an average particle size of .49 microns.

So, I guess the question I am after is this: Does the Green honing compound contain any abrasives larger than .5 microns?

Thanks for all your help,


Benjamin B. Rivenbark

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Dear Sir,

Yes. The product could contain paticles larger than .5 micron.

Andrew

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If you have bought the Veritas Honing compound and would like to return it for a full refund including being refunded for your original shipping charge as well as not paying postage to ship it back, click here: http://www.leevalley.com/home/ReturnExchangeFormUS.pdf

A gentleman at Lee Valley has told me he would have the item description looked into and edited for the future.

I assume that most other places that sell "Chromium oxide" bars also have mostly aluminum oxide in them. When I performed a MSDS search on such bars, I found many that contained only 5 to 10 percent chromium oxide.

For example, McMaster-Carr sells a chromium oxide bar that has an average particle size of TWO microns! (Seraphim, did you *ahem* recommend *ahem ahem* this bar to someone on badger and blade? :) )

Bigbadwulf - I believe you bought the Veritas honing compound on my recommendation a few weeks ago - I'm buying the Hand American chromium oxide, and will gladly send you a good bit for free, as well as a paddle strop made with Hand American leather as an apology! PM me your address, and I'll send it out when my order comes in.

The moral of the Story? Buy the Hand American Chromium oxide. Japaneseknifesharpening.com stocks it. I'm sure Dave Martell will be happy to read my post!!

Cheers,

Great legwork, Ben. Thanks for posting this and pursuing this to such detail. I also have researched chromium oxide in detail after I bought a bunch of the Hand American .5 micron powder. Here's what I learned after talking with and emailing 3 distributors and a manufacturer of chromium oxide:

1. Not all chromium oxide or other abrasive compound powders bear the same particle consistency as you've found out. Some chrome ox powder available can have particles much larger than .5 micron. This means not all quality is the same. With stricter tolerance/less variance in particle size comes greater cost. Most chromium oxide is now manufactured in.......you guessed it, China.
2. Some of the highest grade chromium oxide (and finest grit) is used in the cosmetic industry.
3. NO ONE can make an accurate claim that their chromium oxide powder absolutely contains particles of a certain size and a certain size only. No one. Averages are what are at work in this type of rating.
4. Chromium Oxide is sold primarily to the pigment, industrial, manufacturing, cosmetic and laboratory industries. It's used more than anything else as a pigment.
5. Anyone with a FEIN # can purchase ultra high quality cosmetic grade chromium oxide powder (rated at .6 microns average, actually. No one I talked to offered ".5 micron", even one of the manufacturers) if you find the right company and bug the right rep explaining that although the demographic you'll be marketing to is small, the product you'll supply is in perennial demand and your minimum size order will be worth his while, you can buy high grade chrome ox. I should mention a minimum sized order is 55 pounds.

I agree, the Hand American label chrome ox rocks. It's too bad they're not offering the powder anymore. Hopefully they will in the future.

Wow, sleuthing to the point of getting the MSDS and everything. You sound like me!

Chris L

Great job on the searching! I actually own a little business that deals extensively with tracking down MSDSs for clients, so I can definitely appreciate how much work it can be to get the info you're looking for!

Shame HA aren't selling the powder anymore, though.

I guess that I just got lucky. I seldom need to use a pasted strop but I have used the pictured bar from Woodcraft with great success. I suppose that someone else may get one with larger particles and that they may also surface a little further down the bar that I have but so far, so good.

You can still get the liquid HA chrom ox here and the powder is back ordered. I have both and the liquid is convenient and probably more then you could use in a lifetime.

Wow, that's a good post. I haven't tried those bars or anything, but even if they did do alright as kelbro said, for me there's still the matter of principal. Stating what your product is and what it contains. Thanks Ben!

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Originally Posted by kelbro

I guess that I just got lucky. I seldom need to use a pasted strop but I have used the pictured bar from Woodcraft with great success. I suppose that someone else may get one with larger particles and that they may also surface a little further down the bar that I have but so far, so good.

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Kelbro,

How did you spread it evenly? I bought a bar a while ago and tried to spread it evenly on the back of a strop. The results were uneven. I am curious to see how it perfoms.

Thanks

Hi guys,
Why mess around with unknown stuff?
Just order real, extremely fine chromiumoxide pigment (PG17) used in paintings, like this one:
http://www.sennelier.fr/en/pigments/...s_pigments.php
I'm using this stuff with excellent rersults. It's not cheap, but you won 't need any more for the rest of
your life.

Great Job!!! on the leg work Ben :rock:

Thank you for sharing.....

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Originally Posted by CloseShave

Kelbro,

How did you spread it evenly? I bought a bar a while ago and tried to spread it evenly on the back of a strop. The results were uneven. I am curious to see how it perfoms.

Thanks

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I just used it like a crayon. Did a crosshatch pattern (approx. 1/2" squares) on a suede paddle strop and shook off the excess. It really peaks an edge and lasts a long time. Also worked well on newspaper.

Did the other side of the paddle with Flexcut Gold. The Flexcut didn't seem to work as well but I only tried it on a couple of razors. I read that it works better on stainless blades.

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Originally Posted by CloseShave

Kelbro,

How did you spread it evenly? I bought a bar a while ago and tried to spread it evenly on the back of a strop. The results were uneven. I am curious to see how it perfoms.

Thanks

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CloseShave,

There are a couple of good ways to do it: you can just do a crosshatch pattern down your strop, like this:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

and the results will be fine, or you can take an old knife and shave flecks off of the bar into a small bowl add a small touch of mineral oil, and microwave it for a few seconds at a time until it is pretty warm but bearable to touch. Then, using your finger, smash it, stir it, swirl it, or whatever you need to do to to make it into a homogenous mixture, like you would with a mortar and pestle. This should only take a few seconds.

Then with your already really green and messy finger, apply to the strop as Josh Earl shows in his Sticky on "how to paste a strop". It's located in either the Strops or Hones sections.

If you have a canvas strop, and you want to do the "pool table green" style, put two pieces of painters tape at the extremities of the section you want pasted, like this:

---------+-------------+---------

Then, take the crayon bar and liberally color the heck out of the inside section. Here's where it gets a little hairy - Get an iron with teflon coating on the face, and iron the crayon into the strop. It just melts right in, and hot wax doesn't stick to the teflon. Put an old towel covering your ironing board first, although it shouldn't go through the strop. After ironing, the strop will be really hot, and you can just apply the bar right to the places where it needs it. Since the strop is hot, it melts right in automatically. Keep ironing and applying until it is how you want it.

Let the strop cool, then remove the two pieces of painters tape. (you don't really need the tape, it just makes for very clean lines at the ends of the pasted section, and I think it looks nice. Might as well make it look nice, right? )

Now, take the spine of a kitchen knife, and do a stropping motion over the pasted area. Just the spine, now, ok? This will remove alot of stuff from the top of the strop. Wipe the knife, then keep doing it until you get pretty much nothing off of the strop. Now get a white cloth and rub the heck out of the strop, until you get hardly anything showing up on a clean section of cloth. Now there's not tons and tons on the top of the strop, but it is imbedded into it, and it should work pretty dang well. I've got two strops pasted, and one is very sparse and light, and the other done this way, and they work the same, and I think it looks nice.

Make sure you clean the surface of the iron profusely to ensure you don't iron green flecks into your white shirts!

Great work!

Thanks for sharing this:rock::bow

Thanks to Kelbro and Ben for the instructions.

That stick of mixed Cro/AlO is meant for application to a rotating buffing wheel (cotton or linen) and is meant for polishing steel. I don't think it's intended use is for honing razors. I use a number of different sticks like it when polishing knives and razors but not for sharpening. My buffer is a double ended industrial buffer rotating at 3450 rpms.

But that information on the MSDS sheet really begs the question. Why use CrO at all? I hate the stuff. Rue the day when I wasted a good piece of leather on it. Folks tell me that it degrades the edge that comes off of a coticule or escher or Shapton.

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Originally Posted by Howard

That stick of mixed Cro/AlO is meant for application to a rotating buffing wheel (cotton or linen) and is meant for polishing steel. Lee Valley Tools sells bars with paddle strops as a kit..... Leather Hand Strops - Lee Valley Tools I don't think it's intended use is for honing razors. I use a number of different sticks like it when polishing knives and razors but not for sharpening. My buffer is a double ended industrial buffer rotating at 3450 rpms.

But that information on the MSDS sheet really begs the question. Why use CrO at all? I hate the stuff. Rue the day when I wasted a good piece of leather on it. Folks tell me that it degrades the edge that comes off of a coticule or escher or Shapton.Folks tell me all sorts of stuff, but I don't always believe them. (FOX news) What does your face tell you? If the chromium oxide is used in a way that rounds the ege, then I agree, it can degrade an edge. But, used properly, I don't think it's gonna hurt. YMMV.

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I do agree that the edge off of a coticule, escher, chinese 12k etc doesn't leave much to want, if the honing technique is proper.

(p.s., Howard, I don't intend to imply that you are gullible and believe everything that people tell you - I'm just making a lighthearted jab at FOX news. No offense intended, friend!)

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Originally Posted by Howard

Folks tell me that it degrades the edge that comes off of a coticule or escher or Shapton.

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That's really odd, Howard. I have used Chrome Ox in many ways (balsa, newspaper and leather as media and I have not found that at all. 16K Shapton with finishing on some chrome ox rubbed newspaper:.....mmmmmmmmm good. It's one of the proverbial icings on the cake. Also, for quick touch ups to an edge when I don't want to head down to the basement to a polishing stone, the strip of balsa I keep in my medicine cabinet with chrome ox on it still takes first place as my favorite edge refresher. 25-50 passes on it every few weeks, and I swear it seems at this point that I could keep an edge going for a year+.

I will say that I no longer use the red latigo hanging strop that I rubbed dry chrome ox powder into. It has nothing to do with the strop or type of leather, I don't like chrome ox on a hanging strop. I've felt that it's rounded edges for me. Flat paddles with chrome ox are the bee's knees in my book.

Chris L

I'm with Chris L on this one. I get great shaves off my Coticule or my Shapton 16K but the results are improved with Chrome ox on a perfectly flat leather bench strop and I'll rarely skip the Chrome Ox unless I'm in a rush. This stuff does cut fast and unless you do it well, it IS easy to do more harm than good. I have used a pasted hanging strop, but like Chris L, I prefer a firm bench or paddle strop.

Regards

Christian

You can believe what people tell you , or you can choose to believe what actually works. I go with whatever gets the results, "approved" or not.


Tony

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Originally Posted by kaptain_zero

I'm with Chris L on this one. I get great shaves off my Coticule or my Shapton 16K but the results are improved with Chrome ox on a perfectly flat leather bench strop and I'll rarely skip the Chrome Ox unless I'm in a rush. This stuff does cut fast and unless you do it well, it IS easy to do more harm than good. I have used a pasted hanging strop, but like Chris L, I prefer a firm bench or paddle strop.

Regards

Christian

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Yeah me 2 on the efficacy of Crom Ox. I always say the stuff is like magic. I will hone an ebay razor (they keep coming in the mail:shrug:) and test shave. After the first pass if it isn't comfortable I will go to a Hand American felt impregnated with the green stuff on a flat bed base or to the Crom Ox on a Livi loom strop. This will always improve the second pass. I don't like to use the pastes first as I want to see how sharp I can get the razor off of the various hones without them but I am glad to have the Crom ox and the diamond pastes when I want to use them.

Ben, you've really gone to a lot a effort. Your efforts are amazing.

I can't help but feel it was my own fault for buying it though.

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Originally Posted by Ben325e

Beware of other chromium oxide bars, however, as they are often mixed with larger particle carriers/abraisives.

If I were buying some right now, I'd buy it from Dave Martell at Japaneseknifesharpening.com. He's a great guy, and very active on the kitchen section of Knifeforums.com. He's one of very few retailers of Hand American products, and seems to carry more of their stuff than anyone else. The "liquid" chromium oxide is what I would get.

Find it here: JapaneseKnifeSharpening.com

Ben

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Great thread, thank you all for sharing your research and experience!

My own attitude to Chromium Oxide is mixed. I've definitely rounded up some edges, but I have also had great improvements on an edge from a Coticule or an Escher. Smoother feel. Nevertheless, I don't use it much lately...

Pasted hangers did seem to work very well for me with wedges; for full hollows I think a bench hone that Ilija made for me was much better.

Cheers
Ivo

I dont know if anyone is still watching this thread but here is my question:
I just purchased a small 1.5 oz cylinder of "chromium Oxide paste" from Straight Razor designs. It says .5 microns, but does anyone know if this brand also has high concentration of aluminum oxide?

You are good to go with the SRD Chromium Oxide......

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Originally Posted by Dermoplasm

I dont know if anyone is still watching this thread but here is my question:
I just purchased a small 1.5 oz cylinder of "chromium Oxide paste" from Straight Razor designs. It says .5 microns, but does anyone know if this brand also has high concentration of aluminum oxide?

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Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

You are good to go with the SRD Chromium Oxide......

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Agreed. Lynn and Don would not be selling it if it harms razors.

+1. I have one of those CrOx crayons and it works great..!

Wow. I just bought a bar of this stuff at Woodcraft, and when I realized I didn't quite know how to apply it to a balsa strop, I set it aside.

YOU SIR, (yes, i'm sort of shouting) HAVE DONE US A VERY FINE SERVICE AND DESERVE OUR THANKS!

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Originally Posted by Ben325e

Hey guys, I've had a recent experience that everyone here needs to know about. A few months ago, I was in the market for some chromium oxide, and I couldn't find anywhere that had the Hand American products in stock, so I researched on most of the major woodworking retailers online, and found that many of them sell bars of honing compound.

These bars are green and waxy looking, usually about five inches in length or so. Most of them look pretty much just like this:
http://www.woodcraft.com/images/products/85H28_230.jpg

They are typically advertised as being "Chromium Oxide" honing compound. I didn't like the fact that most of the places didn't give a particle size in microns, so I shopped around. I ended up with the "Veritas" honing compound sold by Lee Valley Tools, because of this sentence in the description on their website:

"It is primarily chromium oxide admixed with other fine abrasives (0.5 micron particle size) to give the best combination of cutting speed and fine finish."

0.5 micron is what I was shooting for, so I bought it and it was great for my kitchen knives (I got into straights from sharp kitchen knives... just a natural progression, I guess!).

When I started using it for straights, I got good shaves off of it, or so I thought. I would follow my Chinese 12k with the polishing compound on a paddle strop of my own making, and things were ok. After a while, I found myself enjoying my shaves right off of the 12k better than with the compound, and under the microscope, my bevels didn't look as smooth as what I found on the Tim Zowada pictures.

I emailed Lee Valley's customer service department, and asked for the Materials Safety Data Sheet on the compound, and they sent it to me, and it was VERY reavealing. The Veritas compound, which they advertise as "primarily chromium oxide" actually has the following composition as seen in the Green/Red box in the pic below.


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3151/...e24ff9ab_o.jpg



The veritas bar is between 50 and 60 percent Aluminum Oxide!!! So, the next question that came to mind was "Is the particle size held to .5 micron?" To find this out, I decided to contact Formax Manufacturing, the company that makes the honing compound (They also make the "Microfine" honing compound like you find at woodcraft.com). I emailed the customer service, and who replied but Andrew Johnston, whose name is on the MSDS sheet. I figured he would be the right guy to ask about the particle size of the abrasive.

Here is our email conversation:
If you have bought the Veritas Honing compound and would like to return it for a full refund including being refunded for your original shipping charge as well as not paying postage to ship it back, click here: Lee Valley Tools

A gentleman at Lee Valley has told me he would have the item description looked into and edited for the future.

I assume that most other places that sell "Chromium oxide" bars also have mostly aluminum oxide in them. When I performed a MSDS search on such bars, I found many that contained only 5 to 10 percent chromium oxide.

For example, McMaster-Carr sells a chromium oxide bar that has an average particle size of TWO microns! (Seraphim, did you *ahem* recommend *ahem ahem* this bar to someone on badger and blade? :) )

Bigbadwulf - I believe you bought the Veritas honing compound on my recommendation a few weeks ago - I'm buying the Hand American chromium oxide, and will gladly send you a good bit for free, as well as a paddle strop made with Hand American leather as an apology! PM me your address, and I'll send it out when my order comes in.

The moral of the Story? Buy the Hand American Chromium oxide. Japaneseknifesharpening.com stocks it. I'm sure Dave Martell will be happy to read my post!!

Cheers,

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If I'm not mistaken, The stuff at SRD is the same stuff used by Maestro Livi

In general you have to look at what the intended purpose of the product is to know what you can use it for. Just because it looks like CrO and says CrO doesn't mean it's what you think. I know lapidary shops sell these huge bars of what they call CrO and it contains everything but the kitchen sink.

Bumping this thread due to some of the recent "Will this Chromium Oxide from <insert hardware store> work?" type posts.

I like the fox news jab. Need some humor

Well, I'm way late to this thread, but found it due to Slartibartast's bump. Before I did a lot of research on here, I ordered that exact same bar, and used it to treat the inside linen surface of my then-new TM Latigo-Linen strop. And though I've now read all the warnings about using such coarse CrOx as this, I have gotten excellent results with it after coming off a Norton 8k (my "finisher" until I can afford a real one). I use it for touch-ups quite often, and am getting great edges and great shaves.

As I'm too cheap to throw it out or get rid of it, I'll probably keep using it for now. That bar is enough to last 10 lifetimes! Maybe when I can afford the SRD paddle strop I'll upgrade my pastes. Till then, I won't fix what doesn't appear to be broken on my end. Anyway, a belated thanks for the leg-work, Ben!

I got some CrOx from Hand American several years ago. I got two bottles instead of one and it proved to be a good idea since it has become very hard to find. I also ended up with a Veritas bar and it is collecting dust in case anybody needs some dust!!

There is a tube of CrOx polishing compound advertised at Hand tools for woodworking, wood carving, wood turning and log building if anyone cares to research the grit size.

Jerry
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Attachment 88902

Star shaving sells hand american stuff - powder and paste, and has for a while. I think it's around $10-$15 for a bottle of paste or a bag of several ounces of powder (I got the powder).

I think I'll get the paste next time. I've spent enough time trying to clean the powder off of things after I dropped a little here or there. It's not hard to see why it's used as a pigment.

Ben It's good to see this old post of yours. I was beginning to think I was the one that cared to know this stuff. I've been in contact with 3 different manufactures trying to get the same exact answers. So far no luck. Each and every company acts like it's a big secret. Anyhow do you have an updated source for the product you are using? I just went to the Kitchen Knife Sharpening Service, Knife Sharpening Service, knife sharpening service by mail, professional knife sharpening services, Japanese knife sharpening service site you listed and it looks as if they are no longer selling products. Do you have a new source to purchase from?

I get a chuckle out of this, because it's being (this particular post) brought up on another forum by a user who likes to troll Lee Valley despite the fact that there are dozens or hundreds of instances of LV doing charitable things and being more honest than they need to. They are good to their employees, good to community and good to their customers - at the expense of the owners.

Zero of those from the folks that troll them as far as I can tell (this is directed not at anyone in this thread, I certainly understand the concern from a razor user's perspective. I've used the hand american powder that star shaving used to sell, I've used a green bar from sears that was $1.99 and I've used the KG green bar that McMaster Carr sells. The latter two have larger particles in them, it's quite easy to notice.

I don't think anyone here would ever find anything more than a stray light scratch here or there if using the formax microfine honing compound on a razor, and certainly it has always brought the polish up from every stone I've used. If there are any particles at their theoretical limit (300 grit), I certainly have never seen them.

(I wouldn't suggest the hard wax sticks that McMaster sells, though - I'm sure you could shave with them, but you can actually tell they're more coarse on tools).

In an actual use test of the formax microfine compound vs. the hand american powder (which is just pure graded 0.5 micron chrome ox pigment), I don't ever remember being able to tell the difference of razor keenness *in actual use*, which should probably be what we judge things by, but I guess not in the days of the internet.

My real issue with the wax sticks is that I have no need for the wax on any of my strops. I'd rather have the powder and affix it to the strop with a very small amount of light oil. Just the same, I no longer use any of them, anyway, as I think a vintage uncharged linen does a better job making a smooth and sharp shaving edge.

I'm surprised at how many times i've been linked from woodworking forums back to this forum, though, based on the supposition that Lee Valley is a dirty pool company. They probably just weren't experts on the product in this case, as it's an ancillary good for them. Nonetheless, of the sticks that are not specifically aimed at razor sharpeners, it's the finest I've found in terms of the abrasive size and the polish it leaves, and it's also the only non-razor specific one that I've run into that the wax is relatively soft - the others are designed

I would imagine the alumina is in the formax stick (and others) because it's inexpensive and because the users of these sorts of things don't have the patience for a buffing compound that is only chrome ox - certainly on tools, pure hand american powder is slower than the formax compound - to the point that it wouldn't be practical for carvers. Actually, i'm not sure that even the formax is that practical for carvers, as the compounds traditionally sold to carvers before the days of internet spec finding (as opposed to judging the compounds based on how well they work in a carving cycle where edge quality and cutting speed are both important factors) were 3 micron-ish alumina only compounds. The amateur woodworking market drives spec sheet buying rather than relying on experienced guidance.

The flexcut gold mentioned earlier in this thread is one of the sticks aimed at carvers.

SRD used to carry the Hand America liquid, now they carry the stick and the spray, don’t know if it is Hand America any more.

You can still get the HA liquid from West Coast Shaving, but it is messy. If you use it pour a small puddle in a container then finger apply, it will pour out of the bottle and make a mess.

The SRD stick is much easier to use.

All the Woodworking sticks, are abrasive and can cause chipping, but if you have some and want to try it, just apply to a piece of cardboard and see what happens. Worst case the edge chips and you will just have to joint the edge and strop it. No big deal.

It becomes an issue if you paste a good strop and it is too abrasive, you will never get all of it out of a leather strop.

Pure Chrome Oxide powder is available from Kremer Pigments very inexpensively, there are threads with the part numbers if you want to order.

Agree with all of that. Speaking from the view of someone not of our experience (due to spending, I'd say - my experience is out of spending, not because I'm an expert - I just bought all of the stuff and tried it).

Once you're in the middle of razors, shop for stuff designed for razors (or from a pigment store that has graded pigments).

For the rest of the stuff (like the green bars), if the seller and manufacturer wasn't honest, I don't think anyone would notice anything from the microfine other than a few small scratches here and there under a scope, and a very good shave.

The other coarser compounds, though, they would have to be equated to more abrasive compounds in the dovo system, as many of them are 3 micron compounds intended to cut carving tools appreciably fast.