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This is a conversation I had with CaswellPlating.com and Formax Mfg about their products and making my own honing compounds. I have found that Caswellplating.com stocks your Micro Fine honing compound and your Flex-A-Glue. I will be purchasing from them. My next question is which of your products would be the best for the following application. I want to buy some aluminum oxide grit and some synthetic diamond grit and add them in a some base that will end up like your green honing compound. This will be applied to a leather honing wheel operating at 1750 rpm. It looks like I could take either your Lube Wax Stick or one of your Grease sticks and then melt them in a double boiler, add the grit, pour into a mold and let cool. The question is which of your products would be the best for this? Any suggestions? Thanks, Randy Tuttle This will depend on how greasy you want the product to be. We manufacture many different grease sticks and wax sticks, all having different properties and binder ratio amounts. Off hand I would suggest trying our 515-126 Slip Stick Wax from Caswell. It is a medium bodied material that should hold up well. Andrew J. Johnston What is the oxide used and what size? I suspect chrome oxide but I need to know the size in microns. The reason I am asking is that I want to create a finer grit polishing wheel using your product Flex-A-Glue Polishing Wheel Cement. By the way, the Micro Fine Honing compound is excellent for all sharpening. I just want to take the sharpness a couple of steps further. Thanks for the help and time, Randy Tuttle Regarding the size of the abrasive used in our compounds, I believe the first and most important aspect of the request, while not unusual, needs to be addressed on subjects other than the grit size of any particular abrasive. As an example: The hardness of the abrasive to a large extent determines its effectiveness. Diamonds as an example come in micron sizes the same as many other abrasives and of course you are aware of why a diamond's hardness works better that most other abrasives. The porosity of the abrasive itself plays a function a part. The oil absorption value of the abrasive plays an important part. Some abrasives will soak up or absorb twice the oils or greases as other abrasives. The melting point of the binders used in making compound is extremely important and that s a whole subject in its own right. The ratio of the abrasives to the ratio of binders used in making a compound plays a functional part. There isn t any strict formula that can be used because of the great difference between the abrasives and the binders. Many compounds have more that one abrasive. And the ratio of one abrasive to another abrasive in the same formulation plays an important part. Just to give you some condensed versions of your request, I'll make the following remarks. The Green Honing compound you buy or have tried actually contains two entirely different abrasives. One abrasive is a Calcined Alumina and the mesh size would be listed as -300. Actually that s a trade determination that simply says nothing in the abrasive is coarser than 300 grit. However, that same specification would see fines in that same abrasive going all the way down to .6 micron. The Green compound is also composed of chromium oxide that has a particular affinity for buffing steels, especially stainless. I hope this letter is of some help to answering your questions. Sincerely,
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