Scratches from 5 micron and 1 micron buff compound

A profound observation

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I can't say whether there's much of a practical difference in use.

It says that some level of refinement is "good enough".

David, I wonder how the scratch from 5 micron Unicorn compares to 1 micron diamond?

Re: Scratches from 5 micron and 1 micron buff comp

Orlando in So. Fl.

Interesting and well done. I wonder what difference there would be between 1 micron and 0.5 micron compounds, if any.

Is there a dent on the left side of the blade in the first picture or is it an optical illusion?

Re: A profound observation

David Weaver

It's probably a little shallower, but wider. I think the 1 micron diamond edge is a good bit more refined and the preference for the yellowcake is due to speed and being "good enough".

yellowcake on the buffer is somewhere between finest oilstone and 1 micron diamond on wood.

The other thing that I sometimes find with a diamond edge on cast is little defects in the edge after stropping (the kinds of defects that PPA would not care about at all). I didn't find that occurring on wood, but wood also takes longer and consumes more diamonds. 1 micron diamond on wood is completely invisible to the microscope, both on the back and at the edge.

I'm not convinced that one is best for chisels and not another is better for plane irons, though - but yellowcake is great for planing anything less than perfect. In perfect wood, I think buffer on bevel down planes is a lateral move unless we get really specific (like down to the washita/linde-A edge, and then it's not a superiority in terms of potential, it's the no-contamination, fast finish that's better than doing all of that by hand).

Re: A profound observation

David Weaver

A less wordy answer -

yellowcake:

http://www.woodcentral.com/woodworking/forum/handtools.pl/page/1/md/read/id/495222/sbj/jackson-lea-5-micron-yellowcake-on-softwood/

linde buffing bar:

http://www.woodcentral.com/woodworking/forum/handtools.pl/page/1/md/read/id/495481/sbj/linde-a-paraffin-buffing-bar/

Notice at the very tip (which I didn't buff heavily with the yellowcake, but I have other pictures where I did - you can see light scratches), there's really no distortion other than oil.

I think most of the finer full polish bars would look like the linde bar, or they wouldn't make a bright polish on a buffed surface (stray scratches would leave spider webbing).

Makes some sense given that the yellow bar is sold as a cut/color bar and not just a final polishing bar. I don't have enough clean wheels to do a huge array of finishes from different buffing bars, but a decent guess can be gotten by using them on soft wood.

The big benefit isn't so much the fineness of the yellowcake, it's "fine enough", but on the buffer, it still eliminates the wire edge and doesn't draw out another significant one.

Dent

Winston

> Is there a dent on the left side of the blade in the first picture or is it an optical illusion?

There is indeed a dent there. This particular blade has been sitting in a box for a few years and I pulled it out to experiment with putting a hollow in the back. I didn't resharpen it before buffing the bevel as shown in these pictures, and it's possible that when it was last sharpened (a few years ago) I didn't get out all the damage.