Thread: SRD hard felt strop & 0.5 micron diamond spray

Wow, just got this and it was just what my 8/8 Friodur needed to really shine. My daughters confirmation is comming up tomorrow and i will be smooth as a babys butt
Nightbreed, preparing food for the party.

+1 I have found mine to be very effective, especially for tough stainless blades.

Are you guys using the diamond spray on hanging hard felt strops or bench hones?

A few weeks back I applied some SRD 6 carat .5 micron diamond spray (bought it in the SRP classifieds IIRC when SRD closed the product out replacing it with 12 carat spray) to some hard felt I had purchased in 2008 from the Hand American website. Bruce confirmed at the recent MN meet at Mike Blue's that the hard felt I had is NOT as thick as the SRD hard felt hanging strops but according to Bruce the surface texture was the same. I took my hard felt and bonded it to a piece of corian tile Randy had given me using contact cement. I checked the flatness of the surface of the hard felt with a straight edge after bonding it to the corian and it was as flat as I imagined a hard felt surface could be. Then I applied the alcohol based diamond spray and let it dry......

The end result was an unacceptable convex surface. The hard felt had expanded in the center running the length of the felt. The difference was approx 1/16" higher in the center. I would imagine that any variance in the surface when used as a hanging strop would be negated by the flexibility of the hanging strop vs. the rigidity of the bench strop/corian.

To be clear: My hard felt was NOT the SRD hard felt.

Has anyone had a similar experience with spraying hard felt? Thanks.

Chris L

+ 1 here too

I left the back side plain for quite awhile and it can be used instead of leather..
I finally broke down and have it sprayed with .25 diamond now, and yes it does tame down that size too....


Edit to Chris
I have sprayed both sides of mine with the one side .50 and the other .25 and have had no problems... I think mine was either the first or second one sent out from Lynn and Don...so it has been working flawlessly for awhile now..

On hanging hard felt SRD strop, sprayed 2 times, dryed overnight. No problems. Extremely nice results on Friodur 8/8 and Filarmonica 8/8 EPBD.
Amund

Spine taped like when honing.

Originally Posted by nightbreed

On hanging hard felt SRD strop, sprayed 2 times, dryed overnight. No problems. Extremely nice results on Friodur 8/8 and Filarmonica 8/8 EPBD.
Amund

Thanks. I'm puzzled as to why the felt I used reacted the way it did. Maybe being fixed to the flat surface meant it had only one way to expand which was up and chose to expand only on the center portion. Mine could have been a felt product not as suited to using for our purposes as the SRD felt seems to be.

Chris L

Mine is the standard SRD hanging felt as well. I sprayed mine with the 6 carat 0.5 on one side only. So far so good.

FWIW, I also have a Hand American flat bed with the magnetic felt. The base itself isn't flat according to my straight edge so obviously the felt won't be either regardless of what substance I apply.

I applied chrome ox and in spite of it not being flat it works fine. I guess it is flat enough and using the x stroke helps too I expect.

The Livi loom isn't really 'flat' either on the chrom ox or the leather side according to a machinist's straight edge but it too works reallywell. I'm all for things being flat but sometimes it is within a tolerance that is acceptable... and sometimes it isn't. Sounds like your felt isn't and that is a bummer.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Mine is the standard SRD hanging felt as well. I sprayed mine with the 6 carat 0.5 on one side only. So far so good.

FWIW, I also have a Hand American flat bed with the magnetic felt. The base itself isn't flat according to my straight edge so obviously the felt won't be either regardless of what substance I apply.

I applied chrome ox and in spite of it not being flat it works fine. I guess it is flat enough and using the x stroke helps too I expect.

The Livi loom isn't really 'flat' either on the chrom ox or the leather side according to a machinist's straight edge but it too works reallywell. I'm all for things being flat but sometimes it is within a tolerance that is acceptable... and sometimes it isn't. Sounds like your felt isn't and that is a bummer.

Yes, mine tracks quite convex. If the surface had more give to it, I wouldn't see this as a problem, but the center is still quite hard. The width of the strip overall is around 2 3/4" and I felt when using it and an X stroke that I was still effectively working with a much more narrow surface. I think such a change would be a non-issue if applied to a hanging strop.

Chris L

Chris, my SRD hanger is 5mm thick and I just took a look, quite flat ... no cupping or anything. The HA felt on the flat bed corian is 3mm and with the chrom ox is also reasonably flat. IOW, by eye it looks flat but with a straight edge it probably isn't. Works though.