Who uses the 10/14 micron pastes? Do you use the leather or balsa and what for?

Looking at the grit comparison chart the photos look like they produce fairly deep scratches. Wondering if anyone uses them in their sharpening progression and/or for touch ups. Is this grit too aggressive for stropping? My experience has been the 3.5/5 aren't as coarse as the photos led me to believe? Or does everyone start out with higher grit pastes?

I use them on leather... doesn't seem that aggressive to me. If I'm going to polish out an edge, I'll use them after the ceramics... I've never noticed the bevel getting less polished. I don't think it's too aggressive for stropping.

Hi Geo,

No, I dont't think the 10/15 micron strops cause deep scratches. In fact, their abrasive power is limited, but they have great burnishing power. I use them on both leather and balsa. They work on both, also they are slightly more effective on leather.

I did an entire serie of blog posts on them. You can see it here.

Let us know your experiences once you've used them.

15 microns is roughly equivalent to a 1k Chocera stone in terms of grit size. I use particles as coarse as 80 microns on strops, but at that size (I have CBN particles as large as 300 microns) you start running into 'issues' using regular strops. I do use 30 and 45 micron particles as strops - nanocloth and leather. They 'sink' into balsa only partially sticking out. If the substrate is too hard they roll around.

An interesting approach to larger particles is to use a waterstone as the strop substrate! There is one caveat. The carrier for the particulates must be water soluble!! Otherwise it can damage a waterstone.

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Ken

Thanks Ken,

This is why I started the thread. I can't tell much difference in scratch size between 5, 3.5, 1, and 0.5 diamond pastes. The coarse grits have more black on the strops (but at the same time I start with these). I don't disagree that 15m paste is the same as 1k Chosera, but do they actually leave the same scratch in the end? I only have a 10x loupe. That being said I don't see much difference in the pastes I currently have. I see the end affect, but can't tell much difference between the coarsest and finest paste.

I guess the answer to the question above is strops do more polishing and stones do more cutting/abrading. I am trying to wrap my head around the grit size part. The other question I have (which relates to the grit comparison) is would using 10/15 microns stops after a 10k Chosera improve the edge or make the scratches deeper?

SO I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it is best to not think of things in terms of stropping honing and sharpening but rather to just call them ALL abrading. So to answer your last question first, a 15 micron strop would be far rougher of a finish than a 10k stone and would be going in the wrong direction.

So saying strops do this and stones do that is wrong. It's all about the particle size as the major factor. An 80 micron CBN strop cuts way faster than a 10k stone. Not even close.

Does a 15 micron spray leave the same scratch pattern as a 1k Chocera. Not really. It is a simplification to compare all particles on all media as giving the same result just because the particle size is the same. Apples and oranges are about the same size but taste different for example. So most stones are aluminum oxide based (generalization). Compounds can be Aluminum oxide, CBN (cubic boron nitride, polycrystalline or monocrystalline diamond, etc etc) Each of these have different abrasive properties based on particle shape particle hardness, etc etc.

Hope this helps. It's just the tip of the iceberg.

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Ken

Thanks Ken,

Not the tip of the iceberg, more like the rabbit hole just got deeper

Somewhere on these forums is a nice progression, both backwards and forwards showing the scratches of each grit under magnification. You can really see the scratch patterns from all of them quite well. It may be worth a quick search to find the thread.

There is a similar thread active right now on stropping sprays and pastes: www.wickededgeusa.com/index.php?option=c...4&Itemid=63#8732

I posted a reply there with some links, including the one Clay meant (I think).