Thread: Chromium

I saw this at the Woodcraft site. Would it work as well as chromium paste on leather or balsa wood?

It doesn't give the grit. Many of those honing sticks contain other crap and it's not as fine as pure chromium oxide in a non-cutting medium (like strop dressing) would be. Unless it gives you a grit of 30k to 60k, pass on it.

I have a huge block like that, it's stamped Trycyclo and is dark green in color, wax base I think. It's all I use and it seems to work just fine for me. That said, I'm still thinking of ordering some of the Hand American stuff... plenty of good folk rave about it. If I had a block like that already, I'd give it a try... if I was looking at buying it, I'd opt for the H A stuff.

Regards

Christian

I have a block of that I use to sharpen my hand tools in the wood shop and it will finish to a mirror polish on a wood backed leather strop. I have not tried it on any straight's but I don't see any reason it would not work just fine.

Chief

It may work great, but don't expect it to work as well as a more refined medium like a 0.5 paste... that green stuff may have particles of any size from 5 microns to 0.5...

if you get the paste from Hand American, you know you have 0.5 or smaller.
I go a step farther than that, and use 0.25 micron diamond paste on my razors just to get that nice clean edge...

If you don't want to wait for the chromium oxide from Hand American, you can often get 0.5 micron diamond paste from open_razor on E-bay.
I would say that is a better option than an unknown grit block of green stuff...

I found something similar at he Lee Valley online store:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...84&cat=1,43072
I was just about asking for opinions about it, when I spotted this thread.

It says: " 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. The bonding is formulated for ease of charging. It will adhere equally well to felt, leather or wood."

That sounds about right to me. I need to make a purchase from Lee Valley in the nearby future anyway, so I was thinking of adding it to my order.

I know many here recommend the Chromium Oxide powder (or is it paste?) from HandAmerican, but I can't seem to find in anywhere.

While the HandAmerican website pages go up and down like a yoyo, you can always get the pastes and bench hones here.

Regards

Christian

Originally Posted by kaptain_zero

While the HandAmerican website pages go up and down like a yoyo, you can always get the pastes and bench hones here.

Regards

Christian

Hey,
Thanks Christian,

I had googled before for "Japanese knife sharpening" and it turns out that I was looking at the wrong store.
With your help, I've found the right store. I've send them an e-mail to ask what would be the cost for shipment to Belgium.
If it's not too much I' guess I'm better off ordering the real deal than the stick from Lee Valley Tools.

Kind regards,

Bart.

Always happy to help.

Christian

If you look at the "Micro fine honing compound" it says that the grit size is .5 micron, and the stuff you have pictured is just a smaller bar of the other stuff. I have some of the one you have pictured, and it does work, but as has been noted, it is probably not as refined as the HandAmerican stuff.

It does improve the edge from 1mic. diamond paste, so it's not terribly unpredictable, but it is hard to apply evenly and for the price you might as well get the real thing.