Chromium oxide bars, or not?

[Phil Pascoe]

So it's different. How?

 

[essexalan]

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

I wondered about that as well. I have found that horsehide is harder/tougher than cowhide and for plain leather with no paste kangaroo is good. I mount mine on a mild
steel base 75 mm by 300 mm by sticking a magnetic backing to the strop. That way I can interchange strops easily and only need one base, of course you could just stick the strop to any steel surface you have in your workshop.
If you warm the wax stick and the strop then you might find application easier, hairdryer will do, but you don't need much abrasive to make the strop effective. You might find that your stick is acrylic based so you would need an acrylic thinner. Important that you don't let a leather strop dry out and I have never had problems with a light smear of mineral oil, very light don't drown it.

 

[swagman]

Its the cut from the kangaroo tail that's prized as a stropping leather.

 

[ED65]

Stewie, I presume from your recent threads that cost is not a major factor for you but for anyone else who'd have significant shipping to swallow on top of the purchase price FYI you can buy pigment-grade CrO from many artists' suppliers. Chromium oxide sold for artistic use is guaranteed to have a small, and usually very uniform, particle size. And it's in dry form so there are zero long-term storage problems, your great-grandchildren could use any remainder if it came to that.

As a single tub would be more than one person would need in a lifetime for stropping duties you can spread the cost of the purchase between a number of like-minded friends if you like. Each person can blend it with an oil or wax as they prefer, to make up a liquid, paste or solid block.

Or you could just buy a tube of fine metal polish, or any equivalent of T-Cut and be done with it :mrgreen:

 

[essexalan]

Its the cut from the kangaroo tail that's prized as a stropping leather.

So I have heard but roo leather costs a lot of dosh in the UK, strict export controls.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Kangaroo steak is rather good.

 

[essexalan]

Kangaroo steak is rather good.

Sharpen up your steak knives between mouthfuls ?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

No way. Like fillet. From Lidl, quite cheap.

 

[swagman]

Or you could just buy a tube of fine metal polish, or any equivalent of T-Cut and be done with it :mrgreen:

Ed65; how do you want me to respond. !!!

Stewie;

 

[D_W]

Couple of points:
* the pastes are overpriced, they're aimed at shavers. a shaver will recharge a strop only rarely. Pigment places (presumably selling to artists and makeup manufacturers) will have much better prices. You can decide what you want the base to a paste to be or just use the pigment. If Hand American ever gets it together again, they sold 4 ounces of graded chrome ox powder for $12. That's a lifetime supply. I have seen graded powders as large as 3 or 5 micron - so care has to be taken to make sure you're getting what you think, unless you just want to take the risk on something like a $5 2 ounce, truthfully, a 1 micron powder would probably be more practical, but everyone thinks that sharpness is holding them back in their work (and if basic sharpening is mastered, that's rarely an issue unless one is doing something like paring exotics - even at that, geometry is more important).
* mineral oil won't hurt the leather. It hasn't hurt my bovine leather (with no compound) for 6 or 7 years. You use a few drops at a time, there's no need to soak the leather. If the base of the paste is oil, then what difference does it make adding oil to the wax strop? If it's a problem, nonetheless, neatsfoot oil has been used on oil for longer than I could ever project it has been
* there is about 10 times as much LV crayon as you should have on the bovine leather on the right. It only takes a small amount of coloring. The reason the oil isn't helping is because there is too much wax there
* loaded strops should be fastened to wood, and the leather should be equine horse butt and not bovine butt. Equine is several orders of magnitude harder

Since you have bovine leather, you can't do anything about it. You can glue it to a flat wood surface with any woodworking glue or contact cement, and scrape the crayon off of the one on the right and start over only just coloring the surface.

 

[MIGNAL]

I use the wax green crayon. I charge the leather about once every couple of weeks. I suspect it's going to last me 5 life times.

 

[swagman]

Mignal; you could always add a wick to that green wax crayon of yours, and use it as candle, when you get too old to visit your workshop.

Stewie;

 

[ED65]

Or you could just buy a tube of fine metal polish, or any equivalent of T-Cut and be done with it :mrgreen:

Ed65; how do you want me to respond. !!!

Stewie;

That's entirely up to you Stewie.

If you are basically saying that you think a fine metal polish or some equivalent of T-Cut aren't up to the job you should just say so, although I'd like to know why you believe that to be the case.

 

[swagman]

Ed65; how am I expected to respond, you obviously have the greater depth of knowledge on this topic.

Stewie;

Stewie, I presume from your recent threads that cost is not a major factor for you but for anyone else who'd have significant shipping to swallow on top of the purchase price FYI you can buy pigment-grade CrO from many artists' suppliers. Chromium oxide sold for artistic use is guaranteed to have a small, and usually very uniform, particle size. And it's in dry form so there are zero long-term storage problems, your great-grandchildren could use any remainder if it came to that.

As a single tub would be more than one person would need in a lifetime for stropping duties you can spread the cost of the purchase between a number of like-minded friends if you like. Each person can blend it with an oil or wax as they prefer, to make up a liquid, paste or solid block.

Or you could just buy a tube of fine metal polish, or any equivalent of T-Cut and be done with it :mrgreen:

 

[D_W]

Ed65; how am I expected to respond, you obviously have the greater depth of knowledge on this topic.

Stewie;

Stewie, I presume from your recent threads that cost is not a major factor for you but for anyone else who'd have significant shipping to swallow on top of the purchase price FYI you can buy pigment-grade CrO from many artists' suppliers. Chromium oxide sold for artistic use is guaranteed to have a small, and usually very uniform, particle size. And it's in dry form so there are zero long-term storage problems, your great-grandchildren could use any remainder if it came to that.

As a single tub would be more than one person would need in a lifetime for stropping duties you can spread the cost of the purchase between a number of like-minded friends if you like. Each person can blend it with an oil or wax as they prefer, to make up a liquid, paste or solid block.

Or you could just buy a tube of fine metal polish, or any equivalent of T-Cut and be done with it :mrgreen:

A response are "those are good points", or "point taken" would be fine.

It's not a contest....unless, I guess, your objective is to knock LV.

What's being missed here is that the LV/microfine stick is a very good product when used correctly, but in this thread, the demonstration hasn't gotten to that point yet. Gobs of individuals, including one of the finest craftsmen in the world (George) have suggested that they use it and described on various forums how they used it.

I'd suggest next time, and you don't have to take my suggestion, but I'd suggest you get a little further along use and experience curves on something like this before you blast / copy and paste posts onto a whole bunch of forums. It's not as if you said that you were going to compare these things and the entirety of the forum universe was surprised and had never tried them. A reasonable sequence would be something like:

* you decide you want to try something finer than most sharpening stones
* you pose a question on forums asking for a comparison of certain items (in this case, asking where to buy chrome oxide would've been a good question)
* evaluate the options, buy one or two and try them and then post your conclusion *after*
* If your conclusion (which you attempted to assert before you had any of these things in hand) disagrees with the consensus, then you want to figure out why that is or concede you might be incorrect

 

[swagman]

DW; a few corrections of the facts are in order.

the following is what George Wilson stated 1 week ago on the SMC Forum site;

The likelihood of rounding the edge by stropping depends upon what the strop is made of, and your technique. I use a MDF strop which is not prone to round the edge unless the user lifts up the blade towards the end of the stroke. I don't do that, but many may. No telling what different people might do.

I wear a 1 1/2" belt custom made of hard English harness leather(The harness maker made it for me. Probably will outlast me!) I take the end out of the keeper and use its HARD suede side as a strop when sitting in the living room. It brings back my SLIGHTLY less than razor sharp ball bearing steel blade pocket knife blade, which I made, to razor keen ness. I take light strokes, and may do 100 if needed. There is no compound on the belt. Certainly gets the knife razor sharp again. I get about 8" of belt to strop on when I pull it out of the leather keeper. Only use about 3" to strop on. I CHANGE ANGLES a lot. That includes the initial stropping after honing the blade on the last stone.

I find I don't need to strop after the UF ceramic stone. It will get razor sharp just off the stone, easily shaving hairs. But,part of that is how I USE the stone. Angles ,etc. .

And yet, here is George in the same post recommending to others they should be using a honing compound. !!!!

I repeat: ITS ALL ABOUT TECHNIQUE that you bring to bear on the strop. Not necessarily the strop itself, provided the strop is made of good material itself, properly compounded (for initial stropping just after stoning),etc..

Another relevant detail to add; you have already stated previously you don't use the green wax honing compound on your own strop.

And yet, here you are condemning me, for also daring to use a different product. !!!!!

No doubt your offsider Dorothy Dix will be making a comment shortly.

Stewie;

 

[D_W]

Another relevant detail to add; you have already stated previously you don't use the green wax honing compound on your own strop.

And yet, here you are condemning me, for also daring to use a different product. !!!!!

Stewie;

I used it for quite a long time, and found that it works very well and improves an edge to at least similar to the 1/2 micron stones (until recently, I had a suehiro gok 20k, and a friend has the 30k glasstone).

I thought the whole particle thing was absurd, even on the razor boards. But it was most likely due to people discussing spec sheets rather than using the bar (several who actually used it commented they were satisfied, as I have been with bars purchased both from rockler and LV).

I have probably 20 different compounds, your reasoning is to suggest that 19 of them are no good because I'm using the 20th, when I've clearly stated that unlike the direction you're going (that the compound may not be fine enough), that I think it's a waste of time in most cases because it's too fine. For woodworking, graded chromium oxide submicron pigment absolutely is.

In this case, as with before, when you're going to blast post something very common that a lot of people have experience with to multiple forums, you should probably hold off posting and drawing early conclusions and learn about it first.

(I suggested the MDF to george years ago, though I can't verify that he wasn't doing it already - I can't recall the details of the conversation but he could certainly be asked. George has a lot of experience with whetstones already, including a lot that are not available any longer because he was in charge of testing stones and deciding what they would stock at wmsbg).

As you're suggesting (and misspelling Dorothea's name), Derek may be along here shortly, but he has already used the LV/formax stick competently and he'd rightfully be annoyed with your veiled and not so veiled attacks at him. You'd have done well to look at the pictures on his website and copy the concentration of material that he had on his strop.

 

[swagman]

DW; to be honest, I wouldn't know what to believe when I read some of your comments on forum sites. It changes every week.

regards Stewie;

 

[swagman]

My contribution to this forum post has ended.

Congratulations DW.

Stewie;.

 

[ED65]

...aaand there we go again.

You might want to heed your own admonition from page 2 of this very thread Stewie :|