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Jeweler's Rouge

Today I aquired several chunks of Jeweler's rouge. Black, Grey, Green and Red. I then called a friend in Kentucky who is makes knives by hand in his spare time. He has been doing this for longer than he wishes to admit. He told me that the progression of the rouges is the following: (From Course to Fine)

Black
Brown
White
Green
Red (AKA Jeweler's)
Blue

He uses them on a piece of leather to finalize his products.

I also found the same progression on the internet on a tool sharpening site.

My question is can these rouges be used on straights ?
If so can any of them be applied to the rear of the white linen strop ?
If so which one ?
Can they be used in conjuction with one of Tony's strops?
Can they be used with balsa wood ?

DO THEY SERVE ANY PURPOSE ON A STRAIGHT ?
My friend told me it all depends on how far someone wants to go to get a perfect edge.
 
Knife sharp is not even in the same ballpark as razor sharp. For instance a 1200 grit stone such as the DMT extra fine is very fine for a knife finish, however this type of stone would only be used for major edge restoration on a straight razor. Most people would not want to shave with an edge below 8,000 grit. If you want to use pastes then use the 3, 1, .5, and .25 diamond pastes or .5 micron chromium oxide pastes that are tried and true for straight razor use. There is no need to come up with a solution for a problem that does not exist.
 
Green Rouge = Chromium Oxide Paste

HOWEVER! the particle size and gradation may differ from that of high end products made for sharpening blades.

I use a 3 paste progression on dremel wheels when polishing razors after the 2000 grit sandpaper to obtain a mirror finish. I also use the green paste on a strop, but I tried 2 other brands of green paste before settling on the current one. The 2 first ones were too coarse and too waxy respectively. If it's not meant for blade sharpening, it's a craps shoot.

Also worth noting, not all rouges will effectively cut steel. Some are meant for softer metals only.
 
When you say paste do you mean what I am calling rouge. The items I have are more like a stone/crayon type material than a paste like an auto wax.

Sorry for all the questions !
 
Same thing in the end (I find anyways). Pastes/Rouges/Sprays use some kind of binding agent to help them adhere to buffing wheels, rags, strops etc. As long as they are not too heavy on the binding agent, they all work more or less the same.

In the case of Rouges, this is usually some kind of wax. I find it makes things super easy when applying to a strop. It's like coloring with a crayon. After applying it, massage it in with your hands. The heat and friction melts the wax a little and helps you to work it into the leather.
 
True jewelers Rouges are not designed for sharpening anything. They are made to polish metal. Unlike sharpening pastes where colors denote grit sizes in jewelers rouge the colors are designed for polishing different metals.Red is for gold and silver, yellow for copper and plastic, grey for stainless steel, green for carbon and very hard steels, white as a general final polish and blue as a general super polish and Vorneau as a pre polish to remove scratches on all metals.
 
I am reviving this thread because I just picked up some white polishing compound from Harbor Freight, how would it compare to the Dovo white paste?
 

Slash McCoy

I freehand dog rockets
Knife sharp is not even in the same ballpark as razor sharp. For instance a 1200 grit stone such as the DMT extra fine is very fine for a knife finish, however this type of stone would only be used for major edge restoration on a straight razor. Most people would not want to shave with an edge below 8,000 grit. If you want to use pastes then use the 3, 1, .5, and .25 diamond pastes or .5 micron chromium oxide pastes that are tried and true for straight razor use. There is no need to come up with a solution for a problem that does not exist.

+1 on the diamond paste progression. That will gitter done. But for ordinary edge maintenance, the 3u is sort of redundant. It is roughly equivelant to ANSI 8k grit, or an 8k Norton synthetic. (still good after 1.5k or 2k paper, though, for sanding/polishing.) The 1u is approximately 14k, about where a 12k Naniwa Superstone would be. A bit of 1u on balsa, and either .5u or .25u on another piece, would be a pretty good kit. You can supplement that with a felt or linen strop with some CrOx on it, or go with some .1u diamond. When you get down to .1u, diamond seems to be a smootherer like CrOx, rather than a sharpenerer like .5u diamond. YMMV. But I would only use the polishing stuff as a last resort. Remember, this is the internet age. You can have practically anything shipped right to your house. No need to use less than satisfactory substitutes.

Even for polishing a blade, I like the diamond paste. A dremel and a felt wheel and some diamond will getcha sparkling in just minutes. 5g will last a long time. Only takes a little dot of it.
 
OK Slash, this was a couple of years ago but for POLISHING a GD, for cosmetics, not sharpening, what progression do you use to get your brilliant shine? 1u, .5 and finish with .25? Diamond paste? Where do you get it?
 

Slash McCoy

I freehand dog rockets
Yeh and finally with .1u. Www.tedpella.com is your friend. Also great on balsa for maintenance stropping post-shave. This is after sanding to 2k. The trick is to get rid of all grinding marks, pitting, etc early in the progression so the processs takes days instead of weeks. Impatience is punished with imperfection. Got to clean up all scratches before moving up to the next grit. Cant be shy about moving back down a grit. Sometimes a finer grit reveals stuff you didnt see at the previous coarser grit. A matte finish is waaaaaay easier but I like the mirror. It can be quite impressive, and justifies asking of an astronomical price if you are selling the razor, and justifiable pride in just having it.
 
Yeh and finally with .1u. Www.tedpella.com is your friend. Also great on balsa for maintenance stropping post-shave. This is after sanding to 2k. The trick is to get rid of all grinding marks, pitting, etc early in the progression so the processs takes days instead of weeks. Impatience is punished with imperfection. Got to clean up all scratches before moving up to the next grit. Cant be shy about moving back down a grit. Sometimes a finer grit reveals stuff you didnt see at the previous coarser grit. A matte finish is waaaaaay easier but I like the mirror. It can be quite impressive, and justifies asking of an astronomical price if you are selling the razor, and justifiable pride in just having it.


This is my favorite part:

Impatience is punished with imperfection

Should hang that up in my shop...:w00t:
 
Not that this is the correct thread but I wanted to say to Slash that when I get my GDs in the 17 degree range, the edge starts breaking down. I find that .220-.225 on spine thickness makes an ideal bevel angle/comfort.

I'm thinking you can go thinner as you use film and finish with TRAILING passes??
 
(C) 2014 Slash McCoy

Send the royalty check to my paypal account, please. Apostate! Jnatter!

No, my brother, I am ecumenical now.

Nothing has been taken away from my love of films, but I have added to the bountiful cornucopia of my honing harvest. The JNat is in no way superior in terms of shave quality etc. than a well done film edge, nor is it any worse (except it's more labor intensive, it would seem), I've added some Harbor Freight diamond plates to my bevel setting regime, a Japanese synth to polish that up, follow that with some film and finish on paste, a JNat, pure leather.......whatever....the world is now my oyster.

Free your hones, and your mind will follow...
 
No, my brother, I am ecumenical now.

Nothing has been taken away from my love of films, but I have added to the bountiful cornucopia of my honing harvest. The JNat is in no way superior in terms of shave quality etc. than a well done film edge, nor is it any worse (except it's more labor intensive, it would seem), I've added some Harbor Freight diamond plates to my bevel setting regime, a Japanese synth to polish that up, follow that with some film and finish on paste, a JNat, pure leather.......whatever....the world is now my oyster.

Free your hones, and your mind will follow...

I think you meant "cojones" in the line above.
 
I have a balsa paddle with green compound on one side and white on the other side. The white compound that I have is faster (more coarse) than the green compound that I have. I applied the compounds sparingly to the balsa and then smoothed it with a little olive oil and my fingers. I don't use pastes in my honing, but sometimes use the balsa paddle to bring back an edge between honings. I have some green on a hanging strop, but have not used it yet on a razor that I shave with. I'm still working out how these pastes fit into my razor maintenance.
 

Slash McCoy

I freehand dog rockets
Not that this is the correct thread but I wanted to say to Slash that when I get my GDs in the 17 degree range, the edge starts breaking down. I find that .220-.225 on spine thickness makes an ideal bevel angle/comfort.

I'm thinking you can go thinner as you use film and finish with TRAILING passes??

Whatever works for you. I seem to get best results from under 17°. YMMV. Trailing the edge is a viable tool in your honing arsenal, tho. If it feels right, gives you the edge you aare looking for, do it.
 
Same thing in the end (I find anyways). Pastes/Rouges/Sprays use some kind of binding agent to help them adhere to buffing wheels, rags, strops etc. As long as they are not too heavy on the binding agent, they all work more or less the same.

In the case of Rouges, this is usually some kind of wax. I find it makes things super easy when applying to a strop. It's like coloring with a crayon. After applying it, massage it in with your hands. The heat and friction melts the wax a little and helps you to work it into the leather.

One of my other hobbies is telescope making. Polishing glass requires a very fine finish since tolerances are required to produce a reflection accurate to a tenth of a wavelength of green light. Typically modern cerium oxide is is about 3 to 2 micron or so, but some perfectionists use rouge powder which is finer, either tumbled in a rock tumbler with ball bearings or the old fashioned way by siphoning week old suspensions of rouge in water in a large covered glass jar, the heavy stuff sinks fastest, what is still floating after a few days is very fine.

Glass is soft so you have to be paranoid about purity incase a rouge particle causes a scratch. Polishing optical glass uses the powder embedded in pitch rather than on a hard surface though so its not grinding as such.

You can buy cerium oxide and other compounds from optical suppliers/amazon and I bought a huge bag of powdered red rouge off ebay some years back intending to tumble it finer, still have it

Another interesting technical challenge unrelated to polishing maybe to have tungsten disulphide (WS2) embedded onto your finished blade (its lower friction than teflon), the ws2 embedds in the metal at the molecular level apparently, they use it on high tech engineering such as gears, engines, bullets etc. Don't they teflon coat razor blades 🙂 ?
 
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