Chromium oxide bars, or not?

[Trafalgar]

People go to great lengths to source a fine piece of leather and then proceed to slather on an obviously too thick layer of crayon, which by the way are meant for power buffing as the wax vehicle melts at speed when tool is touched to wheel exposing the grit.

Leather should be treated with a paste compound, or dry compound with a little oil and it should be hard to discern whether it has been treated at all. This represents about the right amount of 'charge' for the strop. If you believe leather, itself, is efficacious it makes no sense to clog it with crayon that was meant for your electric buffer in the first place. If you consider the leather to be nothing more than a substrate to be obscured by a wax compound then any cheap piece will do as the implement being honed is not really contacting the leather in any meaningful way.

Or just use a firm composition rubber and dry powder as your strop, though it's essentially functioning as an ultra-fine stone perhaps a distinction without a difference. Any final medium equivalent to about 1500 to 2000 grit sandpaper or finer needs no 'strop' per se as very light final passes on the slightly worn paper polishes and doesn't produce a noticeable wire.

3M makes a 5000 grit sandpaper and if you think you need something finer (if even this fine) then it's likely more a matter of psychology than anything having to do with producing edges for woodworking. As previously mentioned those so inclined can move into the realm of .05 micron abrasives used on optical and other laboratory devices but it gets absurd well before this point IMO. Earth pigments are used to polish gold because they temporarily enhance its natural color. In a woodshop they would be a source of staining of the fingers which might transfer to a project. There is no advantage to using jeweler's rouge, artist's pigments, etc. vs. other products for honing woodworking tools.

https://www.amazon.com/Trizact-5000-Gri ... B00LIXEWXO

 

[MIGNAL]

The razor stuff is actually quite interesting but it in terms of woodwork I'm genuinely unsure as to what the merits of going to such degrees of fineness (if that is the right term) are. Are there some tasks that demand such a level in order to be performed? How long does such a keen edge last in typical tool steels? I only ask as my sharpening regimen is Neanderthal by comparison but I can still easily and cleanly pare softwood end grain as mentioned above, shave hair on my arms and take sub-thou' shavings on a smoother, all of the things I assumed you needed really sharp tools for. Is there something or some area of woodwork, like luthiery perhaps, that I'm not aware of where the benefits of these steps present themselves?

I think it rare. Cutting a lute rose with a knife might be one such task. Often you have to cut going against the grain, too much force will result in a cracked or broken section. The knife must be seriously sharp, a fresh scalpel out of the packet isn't sharp enough.
Other than that, not really. I use a 1200 diamond followed by a strop. I have much finer stones but I haven't felt the need of them for months.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Mignal - I think that is the sort of answer Memzey and I were angling for. I don't for a minute doubt the value of sharpening to that degree, just the value of doing it for 99% of everyday woodwork. As long as my tools are one step sharper than I need at that time, I'm happy. Life is too short to get anal about it.

 

[memzey]

I'm entirely satisfied with that answer but I wouldn't say I was angling for any particular narrative.

I've only been doing woodwork as a hobby for the past couple of years now and I have yet, in my extremely limited experience, found any task that required an edge keener than I could comfortably produce with my Neanderthal style of sharpening. I won't go into how I do it because I've been reading these boards long enough to understand what lies down that path but when I bring a dull plane iron back in to a condition I can comfortably use to produce very fine shavings in oak or beech with, I only need to take the tool off the stock for a maximum of about 2 minutes. I wondered whether I hadn't encountered the need for greater degrees of sharpness, requiring more time away from the work, due to my lack of exposure to the areas of woodworking that would benefit from it or some other reason. I'm still not entirely sure but it seems like there maybe some areas, such as carving, that may benefit from these extra steps but in the main people sharpen to 0.25 micron or whatever for their own reasons, not entirely to do with the woodworking task at hand. Which is fine by me, I just didn't previously understand that as being the case is all.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

Mignal, that lute rose is amazing. I've never noticed it in your profile before.
Respect, Paddy

 

[D_W]

The razor stuff is actually quite interesting but it in terms of woodwork I'm genuinely unsure as to what the merits of going to such degrees of fineness (if that is the right term) are. Are there some tasks that demand such a level in order to be performed? How long does such a keen edge last in typical tool steels? I only ask as my sharpening regimen is Neanderthal by comparison but I can still easily and cleanly pare softwood end grain as mentioned above, shave hair on my arms and take sub-thou' shavings on a smoother, all of the things I assumed you needed really sharp tools for. Is there something or some area of woodwork, like luthiery perhaps, that I'm not aware of where the benefits of these steps present themselves?

I think it rare. Cutting a lute rose with a knife might be one such task. Often you have to cut going against the grain, too much force will result in a cracked or broken section. The knife must be seriously sharp, a fresh scalpel out of the packet isn't sharp enough.
Other than that, not really. I use a 1200 diamond followed by a strop. I have much finer stones but I haven't felt the need of them for months.

There should be a gallery of lute roses. They are so pleasing to the eye and done with so much care. A friend of many of ours on another forum had carved one (probably more than one, but he often didn't make that many pictures), too (though he has recently stated that he uses and quite likes the LV compound as a stopping point - the compound that stewie is so concerned about).

http://www.cybozone.com/fg/wilson1.html#wilson6

Thank you for sharing a larger picture of your carved rose, Mignal. We should all aspire to stop and do some small work as carefully as that to challenge ourselves to make a nicely done piece that holds up under a lens as yours does. I'll admit that i haven't. I have enough trouble getting simple planes to look the way I want them to.

 

[Jelly]

Phillip; the final honing media should polish the cutting edge, without forming any noticeable wire edge.

My anecdotal experience sharpening my carving tools for use on very easily splintered timbers certainly agrees with this statement.

I however find that a stiff cloth wheel on a buffing machine with the finest polishing compound I happen to have (usually green or white), achieves this in a matter of seconds; I appreciate that not everyone has a buffer just kicking about, but if you do it saves a lot of hassle and expense over expensive stropping compounds and bits of split leather.

If the work of the buffer girls was good enough for the out of the box finish on the products of traditionally Sheffield cutlers, why do anything else?

 

[bugbear]

If the work of the buffer girls was good enough for the out of the box finish on the products of traditionally Sheffield cutlers, why do anything else?

I thought tools were sold blunt in the good old days.

BugBear

 

[Jelly]

If the work of the buffer girls was good enough for the out of the box finish on the products of traditionally Sheffield cutlers, why do anything else?

I thought tools were sold blunt in the good old days.

BugBear

Knives, razors, surgical equipment etc. certainly weren't... That's where the buffer girls come in.

I daresay that the old timers would have been non-plussed to hear of anyone going to the extremes mentioned; as both adequate and excellent work can be accomplished with a lot less sharpening than that discussed here.

 

[rafezetter]

Having read all five pages - the one thing I'm taking away from this is the recommendation to strop after every major sharpen, and do it often to lengthen the time of a good edge. I used to strop after first sharpen for a short while, but never really felt much of a difference, maybe this has something to do with my using 5k or 7k wet n dry papers as part of my regime and not needing to plane to a "finished" state but merely for processing.

Either way I think I will, it certainly can't hurt as long as I get the technique right and don't dub the edge.

Mignal - that lute rose is amazing, I had noticed it as your avatar, but didn't know you had carved it yourself. I can't imagine how it must have been knowing that just 1 slip and it's ruined, more confidence than I could summon that's for sure.

 

[essexalan]

Beautiful work Mignal. I really must try a lot harder or give up with my humble efforts and just how do you get a Swann and Morton scalpel blade sharper?

 

[bugbear]

Beautiful work Mignal. I really must try a lot harder or give up with my humble efforts and just how do you get a Swann and Morton scalpel blade sharper?

Just use finer abrasives than Swann/Morton deem needed. Simple enough.

Scalpels ain't (that) sharp. Jim Kingshott spoke of sharpening new scalpel blades.

BugBear

 

[essexalan]

I use them a lot for plastic model making and being tight I do sharpen them but I can't say I get them sharper than original. Will check out JK's book later.

 

[MIGNAL]

It's a long time since I made it so I'm not quite sure what I used. I know I made some extremely thin carving chisels to do the plunge cuts. The knife cuts may have been a small violin making knife. It may have been a scalpel. Strop and strop a lot!
Here's the rest of it, in figured ash:

 

[ED65]

Stunning work Mignal! =D>

I use them a lot for plastic model making and being tight I do sharpen them but I can't say I get them sharper than original.

It's hard to do. A few factors can easily affect how sharp you'll get blades like this, but consistently holding the very shallow angle needed is a major obstacle for most people. If memory serves the bevel angle is 12° or something like that, which is very hard to get to accurately in the first place and even harder to maintain over multiple strokes.

I find stropping the only way to consistently beat the original edge on scalpel or craft-knife blades.

Some days I can get a really good edge on P1000 or P1200 paper (edge-trailing strokes) or with a hard translucent Arkansas (leading strokes) but most of the time I need to do a quick strop at the end to get hair-popping sharpness.

 

[swagman]

I have placed an order for a 60 inch length of 3.5mm x 76mm Cowhide Butt Leather from the U.K, to make up some new stropping paddles. The leather will be glued to the wood substrates flesh side down.

http://www.jwoodleathers.co.uk/leatherhide.html

Stewie;

 

[swagman]

The Pure Chromium Oxide Paste arrived in the mail today. I completed a basis trial on the application of PCOP product compared that of the Chromium Oxide Wax Compound (COWC) to some old stock cowhide leather I had in my workshop.

The PCOP was very easy to apply. Only the smallest amount was required to cover a large area of leather. As you wipe the surface with your finger tip, you can feel the extremely fine granular polishing compound within the product. Wear rubber gloves when applying this product as it will stain your skin.

The COWC was a lot harder to apply to work an even coverage across the surface of the leather. As you wipe the surface with your finger tip, the surface feels very undulated and clumpy, with obvious signs of the fine granular polishing compound within the product.



I have read of recommendations not to use any petroleum products on leather strops, as its use long term can severely damage the strengthening fibres within the leather itself, potentially resulting in rotting of the leather.

As a test only, I rubbed the surface of the COWC vigorously with a Honing Oil to see if that allow the COWC to be more evenly spread across the leather. Due to the wax component within this product it made no difference.



I then trialled rubbing the surface of the COWC vigorously with Mineral Turpentine. Due to the wax component within this product it made little to no difference.



Stewie;

 

[swagman]

When viewing the content of the Pure Chromium Oxide Paste, be aware that is all you receive within the supplied container. On opening the product, there was a very thin layer of solidified paste on top of the liquid paste below. That skin has to be removed and discarded as its not re-usable. Its represents a loss of usable product. To prevent re-occurrence at a later stage, I am storing this product in a refrigerator between use. I will make inquiries with the supplier to obtain some further advice.

Its important to note that I payed full retail price to personally trial this Pure Chromium Oxide Paste product.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Chromium Oxide Paste 1 £15.00 £15.00
======================================================================
Subtotal: £15.00
Shipping (Airmail Signed): £11.00
Total (inc VAT): £26.00

Stewie;

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Just out of curiosity, Stewie - why the British leather for the strops? Is it significantly different or better than Australian?

 

[swagman]

phil.p; no I don't believe U.K. leather is in anyway superior to Australian leather.

Stewie;