[Nancy_G]

Someone was looking for aluminum oxide strop compound.

It's in Little Mountain Carving Supply's catalog

http://.littlemountaincaving.com

or 1-800-752-7573

[Nancy_G]

: I blew that URL. sorry. Â* It's

http://www.littlemountaincarving.com

[AlArchie]

I guess I'm just a hardware store nut, but try the jewelers rough from the local hardware store for stropping. Works as good as anything I've found. They also carry tripolli and a white grade, which is a mite coarser.

Al

I have a couple of bars of rouge, red, green but when I try to put them on my strop, they are so hard they crumble, so a bought a bar, can't think of the name, but is dense but soft enough to stick to my strop....much easier to use, and knives come out better as well.

[AlArchie]

I've had two bars like that; hard and crumbly, but they work well on the buffing wheel. I picked up a much softer bar at a silver jeweler's supply in santa Fe, last spring and it loads onto the strop great.

Al

[Bandaid]

You can pick up a variety of powdered grit sizes at stores that cater to people who polish gem stones and the like. I'm not sure if it's aluminum oxide or not but it is a grinding compound.
For those hard to use bars, a shot of WD40 might help to soften them a bit. 8)

Try spraying the WD40 directly onto the strop and then rubbing the compound on it. I've been doing that for years and it seems to work fine with jewelers rouge. Don't do it with Yellowstone, though. Scrape Yellowstone off the block onto the strop and work it in.

Try using a bastard file on Yellowstone. File over a piece of paper. The paricles will drop on the paper and can then placed on the strop. When the file loads up, just tap it on the paper and the Yellowstone will come out. I always fill up a 35mm film cannister with the powder, then I don't have to mess with it when I'm carving.

Butch

[Callynne]

Â* Â* I use a fine grater to grate my Yellowstone, never thought about grating a bunch of it and putting it into a container. Â*Thanks for that idea, Butch. Â*
Â* Â* What the heck is a bastard file, I never heard of it and I'm really surprised the sensors here didn't turn it into a 'thingy' Â*considering the words they HAVE sensored!! Â* Callynne

Dear Callynne,
Those thingy files, my husband collects them. I really don't know why. That and draw knives. I think it is a guy thing.
I will admit it I was just tempted to use a Y on that last thing.. Michele