# Which honing compound?



## woden (22 Jul 2008)

I'm going to start stropping my plane blades on a piece of mdf charged with some of that honing rouge. I made up a leather strop but the leather is too soft as I made the mistake of getting pieces intended for uppers in shoes - don't want to round over the bevel or ruin the flattening job I've done on the backs!

What's the preferred product out there? Axminster do the Koch honing soap and the Zenith range of soaps and rouges. I get the impression from what I've read that the green soap offered by both brands is coarser than some of the rouges and is really intended for use on a felt wheel with a grinder. The same's most likely true of Veritas' green soap.

Zenith's Starmax polishing compound might be the best option (maroon jeweller's rouge) as I've seen jeweller's rouge recommended here and elsewhere. I presume that's because it gives the finest polish going?!


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## bugbear (22 Jul 2008)

woden":3p6mlibk said:


> What's the preferred product out there? Axminster do the Koch honing soap and the Zenith range of soaps and rouges. I get the impression from what I've read that the green soap offered by both brands is coarser than some of the rouges and is really intended for use on a felt wheel with a grinder. The same's most likely true of Veritas' green soap.


I don't know what spec you have for rouge, but Veritas state 0.5 micron as their particle size.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx ... at=1,43072

Further research actually deepens the mystery.

Read this if you want to be confused:

http://www.ganoksin.com/borisat/nenam/b ... terial.htm

Oh, BTW, whilst searching I found that toolshopdirect were much cheaper than APTC for Zenith products.

BugBear


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## gidon (22 Jul 2008)

Some more info on stropping compounds here:
http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/Stropping.html
You could also use some diamond paste - with a spec'ed micron size - Norton 0-0.5 grit for example.
Depending on the finest stone / abrasive you finish honing on - "stropping" will have a different effect. The most important aspect of stropping is removing any trace of the burr cleanly - which gives a razer sharp edge. Any honing compound will do this adequately on some MDF including Autosol or Tormek honing compound for example (~ > 3 micron). (Note if you finish honing on micro-abrasives as above or see my sharpening videos, I'd concur with Beach that general stropping has little benefit if any benefit at all. Even coming off a polishing waterstone (Norton's for example do a very good job of eliminating any burr especially if you use their intermediate 4000 grit stone), stropping may not add any benefit - fine diamond paste on some maple may improve the edge though.
But the nice stuff about those soaps is they are pretty clean to use and the Veritas green one releases itself nicely onto lots of substrates including MDF. There's also the Clifton blue soap available from CHT which does a good job but doesn't release as well.
Sorry to spout on - got carried away!
Cheers
Gidon


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## Paul Chapman (22 Jul 2008)

Jewellers rouge is good - very fine and it doesn't go hard in cold weather. It's the maroon coloured one and looks like this







Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## woden (22 Jul 2008)

bugbear":34s7pu7p said:


> Oh, BTW, whilst searching I found that toolshopdirect were much cheaper than APTC for Zenith products.


Ahh, but do they charge postage - and crucially to Northern Ireland? There's sort of a magnetic attraction between me and the particular products Axminster stock as I can lump them in with other _much needed_ - no sniggering at the back - stuff and eliminate postage at £45 an order. And that applies to Northern Ireland - no mean feat of customer service when we usually get the asterisk treatment*.

*free postage excludes areas of the UK beyond the bounds of civilisation: north of Hadrian's Wall, that mystical place off the west coast of Wales, sheep strewn Hebridean islands and postcodes beginning with Yankee Doodle Dandy 34.



gidon":34s7pu7p said:


> Depending on the finest stone / abrasive you finish honing on - "stropping" will have a different effect.


I'd given this some thought when choosing the stones for my sharpening routine. Even prior to reading Brent Beach's conclusions, I couldn't see the point in finishing on an extremely fine stone and then effectively replicating this stage with honing compound on a strop. That's just doing the same work twice. No, I want the final strop-honing to be a reasonable further step. Hence, my second stone being the DMT extra-fine, there's a real step up from it to honing compound and it in turn is a good intermediate between the final polish and the DMT fine I begin on. This routine will also conveniently exclude waterstones - things I have a real aversion to.

Maybe the leap from x-fine DMT to rouge is too great (I think the equivalent in waterstone grits would be 1600 then 8000+) but hopefully I'll get away with it.



Paul Chapman":34s7pu7p said:


> Jewellers rouge is good - very fine and it doesn't go hard in cold weather. It's the maroon coloured one and looks like this


Paul, is yours the Zenith Starmax stuff, by any chance? If the Veritas green soap is 0.5 micron can jeweller's rouge really be finer, I wonder? Maybe it isn't and instead the selling point is that it's more versatile - doesn't go hard in the cold as you say.


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## Paul Chapman (23 Jul 2008)

woden":19gq43z6 said:


> Maybe the leap from x-fine DMT to rouge is too great (I think the equivalent in waterstone grits would be 1600 then 8000+) but hopefully I'll get away with it.
> 
> Paul, is yours the Zenith Starmax stuff, by any chance? If the Veritas green soap is 0.5 micron can jeweller's rouge really be finer, I wonder? Maybe it isn't and instead the selling point is that it's more versatile - doesn't go hard in the cold as you say.



I go from DMT extra fine (which I use with oil) to the strop with jewellers rouge and find that works well.

Not sure what make my jewellers rouge is - I bought a pack of six different honing compounds in a local hardware store.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## Karl (23 Jul 2008)

Woden

I use the green and white honing soaps from Axminster on a scrap of MDF, as you can see in this photo. 






It works superbly well, and gives a razor sharp edge easily.

Cheers

Karl


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## CNC Paul (23 Jul 2008)

I use Solvol Autosol on a scrap of MDF.


Paul


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## bugbear (23 Jul 2008)

Paul Chapman":2won2x9p said:


> Not sure what make my jewellers rouge is - I bought a pack of six different honing compounds in a local hardware store.
> 
> 
> Paul



I can't be sure, but it may be "indicative" that the Zenith mixed pack also contains SIX compounds..

http://www.toolshopdirect.co.uk/item.php/sn/ZENGBV6

BugBear


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## Paul Chapman (23 Jul 2008)

Yes, they look similar to mine, BB - the colours are the same.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## newt (23 Jul 2008)

Tried some Autosol on MDF and it did not affect the surface at all, perhaps I was just lucky.


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## Paul Chapman (23 Jul 2008)

newt":1u5tcwo8 said:


> Tried some Autosol on MDF and it did not affect the surface at all, perhaps I was just lucky.



I think ordinary MDF varies quite a lot. On some pieces the surface seems almost glazed, on others it's quite matt.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## woden (23 Jul 2008)

karl":120a4xgq said:


> I use the green and white honing soaps from Axminster on a scrap of MDF, as you can see in this photo.


Those are Zenith as well, aren't they? I just wonder about the need for the second white compound if it's the case that Zenith's green soap is something similar to Koch's or Veritas'. If the green stuff contains particles less than 0.5 microns in size what unearth could the white contain that would still do any abrading? 

But maybe the green soap you have is coarser than the other brands available - hence the need for the second step. But then why not dispense with the first soap and just use a fine stone before resorting to the final white compound.

Though maybe that's the point of the two soap option - cutting down on the number of stones required?! S'pose it's horses for courses - more soaps and fewer stones, or vice versa...




Paul Chapman":120a4xgq said:


> On some pieces the surface seems almost glazed, on others it's quite matt.


Which is better for honing - glazed or matt? I'd have thought that the 'rougher' texture that cheaper mdf is finished with would hold compound better. But then might cheaper mdf be less flat or more likely to break down with the wear and tear of the honing process?


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## bugbear (23 Jul 2008)

woden":20zg66g3 said:


> Which is better for honing - glazed or matt? I'd have thought that the 'rougher' texture that cheaper mdf is finished with would hold compound better.



(chuckle) I don't think it takes very much "texture" to hold 0.5 micron particles!

BugBear


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## Karl (23 Jul 2008)

woden":24i6k9i1 said:


> karl":24i6k9i1 said:
> 
> 
> > I use the green and white honing soaps from Axminster on a scrap of MDF, as you can see in this photo.
> ...



Woden

I don't think that micron size/colour is universal across the manufacturers. The green soap on its own doesn't give a razor sharp edge - for that you have to use the white soap as well.

In practice it is supremely easy to get a sharp edge - a quick few strokes on each side of my Trend diamond stone, remove the burr on the fine side, then a few passes over each honing soap, on both face and back edge. Takes about 1min and gives a razor edge. AND no cleaning up required!!!

Cheers

Karl


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## bugbear (24 Jul 2008)

karl":2t470po6 said:


> I don't think that micron size/colour is universal across the manufacturers.



You can add type of abrasive particle to the variation as well.

Further, I think some "proprietary" wonder products are using a mixture of materials and particle sizes...

BugBear


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## woden (24 Jul 2008)

Hmm, given the apparent differences in the various compounds it might be necessary to experiment with a few to find which one - or two - works best. They're not expensive anyway so it's not like buying a whole raft of different stones.

I'm going to get Zenith's jeweller's rouge for now. I want to keep the honing routine as simple as possible: just two steps when refreshing - x-fine DMT and strop; the fine DMT gets introduced after a grind.


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## bugbear (12 Aug 2008)

I was just reading about ATM on the web, and tripped across this; most interesting, I thought.

www.us-products.com/downloads/HardnessC ... 0Chart.pdf

BugBear


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