Thread: feather to straight

Originally Posted by mparker762

I take a very small dab - about a 1mm-long line from the syringe - and smear it diagonally down the paddle at about a 45 degree angle. I apply the line sideways on my fingertip and slowly roll my finger as I rub it across the paddle to help ensure an even track across the paddle. I'll do about 4 smears in each direction (i.e. at 90 degree angles) resulting in a crosshatching pattern, then smear it lengthwise up and down the paddle as best I can.
I use the same technique for applying other abrasive pastes like coarser diamond pastes and chrome oxide, whether the substrate is leather, wood, vellum, cardboard or paper.

Great tips MParker, Thanks. BTW How much coverage can you get from that 1mm line of paste (in lengthwise inches for example) 10 inches of leather strop? Or would that require additional paste?

Originally Posted by DEwey

Great tips MParker, Thanks. BTW How much coverage can you get from that 1mm line of paste (in lengthwise inches for example) 10 inches of leather strop?

Sure. How long of a stripe you can run depends purely on how quickly or slowly you roll your finger as you apply it Again, you're not going for density - the paste can be so thin it's invisible and yet still work great.

I'll see if I can take a photo of one of my pasted paddles for illustration... hang on...

Edit: Ok. Attached is a photo of a paddle made out of newspaper wrapped around an 8x3 piece of bathroom tile. The "top" of the paddle is the bottom of the tile, which was flattened by building it up with grout then lapping it flat. The newspaper is pasted with 0.1 micron diamond applied in stripes then smeared with my fingers and later by the razors.

so you keep the newspaper pasted and wrapped around the tile from multiple honings right? How often should I paste some new newspaper if I'm just honing 1 razor?

when it stops working ...

Cool paddle, Michael. How thickly is the newspaper wrapped? Is that one "sheet" from a broadsheet newspaper?

It's a little less than a sheet. The paddle is a 3" wide chunk of tile; when I've wrapped about 3-4 layers I take a box cutter and trim it short so the taped end lands on the back of the paddle, and trim the ends flush.

the newspaper worked on my wapienica so I think I'm going to give this a try on some more of my toys. I also have some .1 micron paste coming in the mail so I'll give that a go too.

thanx for the help

Thanks for the Photos and the insight by MParker and the follow up by Salad is encouraging, too. I may have to try newsprint again. When I did it last, I sliced the paper pretty quickly and gave it up. Good to see the example of the paste, thanks!

Just a reminder: the 0.1 micron paste isn't critical. It seems to have the same effect (in terms of smoothing and sharpening) as the newspaper's own ink. It just helps things go faster without having to scrounge for a particularly dense photo.

I did mine edge trailing but it looks like edge trailing is slower