Originally Posted by
mparker762
The 3 and 6 micron pastes will be fairly infrequently used, the 1 micron is the main one you'll be using, but 1 micron diamond usually leaves a fairly rough-feeling edge unless the razor is extremely hard. The Dovo red and black pastes, even though they're also roughly 3 and 1 microns leave a much smoother and sharper edge than the equivalent micron diamond, partly because they're much slower. Generally speaking, for two abrasives of roughly equivalent grit sizes, the slower-cutting abrasive will produce the finer edge, so ~3 micron Dovo red produces a finer edge than 3 micron diamond, 1.8 micron boron carbide produces a finer edge than 1 micron diamond, and 0.5 micron chrome oxide produces a finer edge than 0.5 micron diamond, and 0.3 micron Linde "A" produces a finer edge than 0.25 micron diamond.
If you're looking at the full Dovo progression of green, red, black, and white paste, then a roughly equivalent diamond progression would be 3, 1, 0.5, and 0.25 microns.