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. The water-based emulsions are best for absorbent strops, and the oil emulsions are best for our hard polymer strops, which are non-absorbent. Each emulsion is packed with the highest possible concentration of abrasive, 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. 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. Lizard Sauce is oil based for our polymer strops and Piranha Sauce is water based for strops that are absorbent like leather. Diamonds normally work best below 10 microns on any kitchen steels hard enough to hold an edge well. The soft white aluminum oxide is very friable, specifically for polishing, but it does cut well too, and is good for softer steels. The .5 micron aluminum oxide is special and should be on everyone’s list, even if you just want to deburr a toothy edge. The rest of the emulsions are less needed, but I have needed them all at times, so they got on the list. The coarser diamond emulsions with a strop are the best, and sometimes only, way to sharpen ceramic knives that I have found. I still use stones to thin or shape but avoid apexing with them due to micro chipping. Strops are far less prone to cause microchipping, which can be handy with some steels too, so you can’t have too many emulsions to choose from when sharpening.