A Quick Strop compound guide for beginners.

⬆️Green Chromium oxide is a good choice if you want something thats cheap, and quick. It works well for most common steels. However, if you are using very hard (62hrc+) or high carbide content steels like cpm-m4, or cpm-3v, chromium oxide might leave you wanting more. Chromium oxide won’t be hard enough to cut the carbides within the steel matrix. Also, chromium oxide breaks down very quickly on a strop, requiring you to re-apply often. You will most likely want to re-apply every time you strop. This can leave the strop feeling very gummy or waxy after a few uses. And overall, not provide a very good stropping experience.

⬆️Diamond spray compound is a much better option in my opinion. It is much more expensive, but will give much better results with modern steels. Diamond strop compound works with any steel regardless of hardness. Diamond also doesn’t break down like chromium oxide. And once applied to a strop, will last for dozens of sharpenings, without a degradation in performance. Its grit is also much more accurately graded than chromium oxide, leaving you with the exact finish you want, as opposed to chromium oxide which can very widely in the grit rating. A good starting point is 1 micron if you are coming from a 1000 grit stone or finer. If you are using anything coarser then 1000 grit, id go to a 3 micron.

⬆️The Fastest, easiest way to hair whittling sharp, from my testing, is to use a dmt coarse, dmt fine, and a 1 micron diamond strop. This will give you very sharp working edges that have some BITE! Sure diamonds are more expensive up front, but they will pay for themselves with the time savings and less fuss. I am typically not one to recommend spending un-necessary money. And you can get good results with cheap equipment. But as steel technology progresses, so do the abrasives used to sharpen them. Sometimes it pays to spend a little more.

Be sure to research prices to product links and make sure you’re buying the correct grit!

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