We have written a number of articles about keep your Honey Badger Knives sharp, here we take a look at the use of Diamond Polishing Paste.
Stropping a knife edge removes very little metal but is still very useful to maintain a shaving sharp edge. The only proviso is that the edge is not badly damaged or completely blunt.
There are many great commercially available strops like these from Chris Williams which come preloaded with various compounds. There are however many folks who like to take bare strops (either basswood or leather) and then coat them with their own compounds. These compounds often come in the form of a solid bar which you then rub over the strop material. This leaves a fine layer of compound.
More recently diamond polishing paste is being used by those enthusiasts wanting to take their stropping to yet another level. These pastes come in various grit or micron sizes as can be seen in the table below care of Tech Diamond Tools whose compounds we used here.
Grit guide:
- 200,000 Grit, 0 to 0.1 Microns – The Finest Polish
- 100,000 Grit, 0 to 0,25 Microns – Final Polish
- 50,000 Grit, 0 to 0,5 Microns – Final Polish
- 14,000 Grit, 0 to 1 Microns – Final Polish
- 8,000 Grit, 0 to 2 Microns – Mirror Finish
- 5,000 Grit, 1.5 to 3 Microns – Mirror Finish
- 4,000 Grit, 2 to 4 Microns – Mirror Finish
- 3,000 Grit, 3 to 6 Microns – Fine Polish
- 2,000 Grit, 4 to 8 Microns – Fine Polish
- 1,500 Grit, 6 to 12 Microns – Pre Polish, Fine Lapping
- 1,200 Grit, 8 to 16 Microns – Lapping Metals
- 1,050 Grit, 12 to 20 Microns – Lapping Metals
- 800 Grit, 14 to 24 Microns – Stock Removal or Lapping Metals
- 600 Grit, 22 to 36 Microns – Stock Removal or Lapping Metals
- 500 Grit, 36 to 54 Microns – Medium Fast Lapping
- 400 Grit, 54 to 80 Microns – Medium Fast Lapping
They have a standard 3 pack of Diamond Polishing Paste consisting of 4000, 8000 and 50000 grit syringes. We requested to be sent a 2000 grit syringe too to see how good it was to sharpen a dull knife.
They key in applying the diamond polishing paste is to apply as little as necessary to cover the strop.
We found that making this squiggly pattern dispensed about the right amount of paste which was then spread using an old credit card.
As advised by the folks at Tech Diamond tools we applied both the the 2000 and 4000 grit diamond polishing paste to the rough side of the leather and the 8000 and 50000 grit pastes to the smooth sides. These pastes are mineral oil based so if there was a need to smooth things out a drop or two of mineral oil on the strop would help. We did not find this necessary.
The strops were then left overnight so that the paste on the four strops could properly dry.
We took a knife and dulled the edge by sliding it along a stone. At this point it would not cut paper at all. Ideally with the knife being so blunt one should not use a strop as the first step to bring the edge back. However we wanted to see if the 2000 grit strop would do just that.
It took quite a number of passes as you can see from the metal residue on the 2000 grit strop but it actually did bring the edge back to the extent that it would cut paper albeit a little rough.
We then progressed to the 4000, 8000 and 50000 strops and after each one the knife edge became shaving sharp and started slicing through paper very cleanly and easily.
With the knife already quite sharp after the 2000 grit strop much fewer passes were required while progressing through the remaining 3 strops. In reality the Diamond Polishing Paste 3 pack would have been adequate as one should never let a knife get as blunt as we made it at the beginning of this test.
There are many suppliers of these pastes with pricing varying wildly. The folks at Tech Diamond Tools pride themselves in the fact that their compounds are all made in the USA. Additionally the high concentration version of the 3 pack mentioned here has an excellent 50% concentration of diamond powder in them. They turned their passion into a business, that started and stays in the US. This enables them to maintain the very high quality and consistency of their diamond compounds.
We found that these high concentration pastes from Tech Diamond Tools worked very well and are very reasonably priced at $21.50 for the 3 pack.
What Honey Badger Knife are you going to buy next?
