Thread: cerium oxide

I'm going to paste one side of an old strop with cerium oxide and i read the wiki about finishing pastes and it said it was also used as an alterative to jewelers rouge and called opticians rouge,i chose it because it's said to be a very fine smooth polisher and i think it would enhance the highly polished edge my arkansas stones give than coarser or harsher pastes like i used years and years ago but now i'm curious as to how different jewelers rouge is there was a little bit saying it's very similar but slightly faster cutting so i'm hoping someone with more experience can satisfy my curiosity

Are you using cerium oxide .5 micron or super cerium oxide .3 micron?

CeOx is used for polishing optical lenses and is also used as a rock polising compound. I get mine here- www.deltaonelapidary.com

If you want to go finer than CeOx, I am told that iron oxide .1 micron will fill the bill.

Then there is the school of thought that pastes will ruin the well-honed edge. Except for my occasional use of CrOx on balsa, I have cured myself of the paste frenzy.

I hope this helps............

I don't use paste on hanging strops, it just makes sense to me that a pasted hanging strop would tend to round the edge do to the slack in the strop. Now a pasted paddle strop is a different story. I do use a paddle strop with Chromium Oxide on balsa and Ferrous Oxide on felt. When a razor stats to pull and drag it only takes 10 passes on the Crox/balsa and I do 20-30 on the Ferrous/felt, seems to 'Bring 'em Back Alive'............

Two things

For the OP like any other paste, the purity, and the grit size make a huge difference in performance..
I use the 99.99% pure CeOx from OSA
The one thing you should know is the .30 CeOx is NOT a sharpener/refreshing type paste like most everything else, it really only smooths up an already fine edge...


To those of you that "think" pasted strops convex an edge you need to read this thread ...

http://www.straightrazorplace.com/fo...xperiment.html

I tried to prove either side of the equation as some swear that they "Overhone" the edge and the others claim the "convex theory" and both just can't be true

I would invite you guys to try it yourselves, I would love to hear more data points.. Because honestly I don't consider myself the best "Stropper" in the world...

On a hanging strop, unless it's held with so little slack that it forms a "U" shape the center of curvature is so large that the increased angle subtended between strop and blade over a flat surface is negligible. "Rounding" the edge wouldn't be a problem.

OK, Glenn, I stand corrected. Although I have not personally tried it I based my conclusion on some old info........thanks for straightening me out on that. I do tend to rely on old info too much. I need to experiment more with some of the newer stuff and ideas. BTW, good thing there are guys like Glenn to keep us not so experienced shavers up to date on what's going on.

I have one of ChrisL's leather/felt strops and will have to try some paste on one side of it, will probably use Crox that I also got from ChrisL.

While on the subject of paste, I don't remember where but I recently read where you could use, are you ready for this.....tooth paste? Any thoughts guys? Maybe this should be a separate thread.......

Originally Posted by DoughBoy68

OK, Glenn, I stand corrected. Although I have not personally tried it I based my conclusion on some old info........thanks for straightening me out on that. I do tend to rely on old info too much. I need to experiment more with some of the newer stuff and ideas. BTW, good thing there are guys like Glenn to keep us not so experienced shavers up to date on what's going on.

I have one of ChrisL's leather/felt strops and will have to try some paste on one side of it, will probably use Crox that I also got from ChrisL.

While on the subject of paste, I don't remember where but I recently read where you could use, are you ready for this.....tooth paste? Any thoughts guys? Maybe this should be a separate thread.......

No, please don't just take my word for it, I would much rather other people try it too...
The more data the better...

And yes I think toothpste would work, but the old fashioned style of "Tooth Powder" would probably be the best

Cerium oxide is often used as an ultimate polisher for lapidary work, mostly for harder stones like in the vicinity of quartz, hardness wise. You can also use levigated alumina which is much cheaper and almost as good. I used to use the stuff by the pound back in my college days in the geology Lab.

I'm not sure what grade it is i bought of a member selling it cheap and he didn't know because of the finely polished edge left by the arkansas the old paste seemed to mark it so i thought i would try the ceox and see if it would polish the edge a little finer mainly just curious how it would go and jewelers rouge on the other side maybe just too much time to think of these things

i know i'm over thinking this i am a bit ocd but is there anyway to tell what micron it is ???