Stropping is for removing the burr from the grinding/sharpening stones. It drove me nuts to find out that color meant pretty much nothing from one maker to another. I can still feel a burr off of a sharpening stone that is 16000 grit. Jewelers rouge is about 30,000 grit. There is one green one, chromium oxide maybe that is 60,000 grit. Stropping is pretty much polishing the edge. You can touch up a very fine edge that has dulled a little bit, but you can not sharpen a dull edge with stropping compounds, well, unless you want to spend years doing it...
Yes, really great mention and super-helpful to folks just learning about this! It's mainly rough to fine when sharpening, where the stones do the heavy lifting. Or for folks that maintain tools really often, stropping might be enough to keep sharp tools sharp. Though a dull tool with stropping would take an eternity 😃 And I wish too that manufacturers standardized color! It would save people so much hassle
Chromium oxide (green) is a more coarse and harder cutting compound than Iron oxide (red). For most people using hardened steel tools or knives, green compound (chromium oxide) will be plenty. Red compound (iron oxide) is for super fine edge polish and is usually not necessary. In this video, it appears to be represented backwards.
Hello, thanks for adding to the chat. For many tool needs it's generally ok to use one or so, and it's for more "edge cases" (pun intended 😃) the finer and finer grits can become more useful. We've found thst manufacturers can vary in how they color their grits, and offered that up as folks using a compound from one manufacturer might find the specific relative "grit" as a different color from another. It would be great if it was consistent across them all!
I actually checked into my first comment and some green/red compounds are reversed. I have a set that is labeled the way you have it in the video. I wish this stuff was more uniform.
@@mikeku825 We totally agree 😃, it would make it much easier plan, buy, use, and talk about. Thanks for sharing what you found, I'm sure lots of folks might have mixed sets, too.
So I’ve been using a green stropping compound for my work sharp elite sharpening system. I just bought a red .5 micron compound and a white 2.5 micron compound. What’s the grit difference between the two?
Hello 😀 Best would be to check with the manufacturer of the compound as they might have the most accruate reference. Aside from that, there are general grit to micron conversion tables (lots on google) where an approximation can be derived, which might be good depending what the use is.
Great video for complete mis-information, just exactly where did you get the "grit size" for the Dialux range shown? It certainly wasn't from Osborn the makers of these compounds, each of these compounds are for different materials and the 3 that you showed are all used for final polishing on different metals (The green is no where near a 30,000 grit equivalent, these figures that you grabbed out of thin air are outrageous to the point of laughable considering the Osborn don't give this in ANY of their literature on the site/product. You could have just condensed this entire video by saying that a 6-8 micron diamond paste or emulsion could be used with a final 1-2 micron emulsion-paste for high mirror finish.
Hey 😃 It might depend on intended use. If it's just to keep regular knives useful and sharp, then it might work just to experiment with them and see what works best over time. If looking to use them for very specific purposes or for very valuable blades, then it might be helpful to know more exactly what they are. And maybe it's possible to know where some came from, could be a way to identify a manufacturer and their color uses. If it's one of those fun piles of things accumulated over the years 😃 there's probably some good use for them.
Well most carbides in steels (especially vanadium carbides) are way harder than any of these sharpening particals (aluminum-, iron- and chromium-oxide). Thus for anything other than very simple cheap steels you actually need diamond emulsions to strop the edges (and also need to use diamond abrasives to sharpen as otherways you cause carbide tearout and fatigue the steel which leads to a weak edge and subpar edgeholding).
Hello 😃, that's a very excellent point how the blade composition can be an initial factor in compound choice. Are there any diamond emulsions or abrasives you would recommend? Thanks
@@internationalleatherclub for diamond emulsions Sroppystuff has the best ones by far. Second best would be gunny juice. For sharpening stones there are many options. Dmt and atoma both make good diamond plates. If you want higher finishes you should look at resinbonded diamond stones like venev or naniwa makes them. With steels like 145cm or s30v you might get away with aluminum oxide stones. For anything like m390/cv20, m4, s90v, s110v, k390 or magnacut you should do full diamond sharpenings (diamond stones and diamond emulsions for stropping)
@@internationalleatherclubStroppy Stuff is amazing because its dyed so you know what strop you are using if you have multiple. I use balsa wood and basswood strops with the Stroppy Stuff on it.
@@TheGuidedSharpeningGuide Thanks for the recommendation, it looks like they have some great stuff. I like how their honing oil is plant based, and the detail on their product descriptions and formulations. I'll check out some more, I appreciate it
@@internationalleatherclub your welcome. I personally use 6 micron for a really toothy edge, 4 micron for a glossy satin using the 6 first than the 4 to finish it on, if im going for a mirror finish i have the 1 micron and i use it in a progression from 6 to 4 to 1.
