Stropping Emulsions

We now offer water and oil-based stropping emulsions in various abrasives and grits. We use the same high quality, tightly sized, monocrystalline diamonds in our emulsions as in our stones for the best performance. Both the filtered demineralized water and white mineral oil carriers are food grade and contain no dyes or fillers, both for your safety and your strop’s. Piranha Sauce is our water-based emulsions and are best for absorbent strops, and Lizard Sauce are our oil emulsions, which are best for non-absorbent strops, such as our hard polymer strops. Each emulsion is packed with the highest possible concentration of abrasive for the carrier, optimized for its specific grit to maximize cutting efficiency. The emulsions are in a 1-oz squeeze bottle with a fine-tip dropper; application is accurate and clean – a far more reliable method than pumps, particularly with coarser abrasives. The concentration of each emulsion is clearly indicated to the right of the product description; water-based are 1x, which is 1 gram of abrasive per oz of carrier. You may find it beneficial to thin these emulsions when in use, as they may be too concentrated for some circumstances.

We also offer aluminum oxide and silicon carbide emulsions. These sometimes work better than diamonds, often on softer steels. The outlier here is the .5 micron aluminum oxide. I find it is very good at refining edges and works well on steels at least as hard as S90V, often working better than diamonds in similar sizes.

It is important to clean the oil off the strops before storing them, as it can harm the strop resin if left on for weeks. Isopropyl alcohol and a paper towel work well, or soap and water.

These prices are introductory since it is a new product line. So, if you can accept the simple label, you can get very high quality, high concentration emulsions at a low price. But time is limited, so try some soon.

What emulsions do I suggest you get

If you wish to strop after your last stone to a polished edge, then start stropping with the next finer grit and continue. Diamonds are best at polishing the bevel, but I often find they create burrs themselves. The soft white aluminum oxide is very friable, and excels at deburring, but doesn’t polish nearly as well as diamonds do. The .5 micron aluminum oxide is special and should be on everyone’s list, even if you just want to deburr a toothy edge. At this time, I find it second to none at improving the keenness of an edge, even on Maxamet. The rest of the emulsions are less needed, but I have needed them all at times, so we stock them. Strops are far less prone to cause microchipping, which can be handy with some hard steels or ceramics, so one or two steps up in grit rating than what you normally use can come in handy at times.