Green AO-Gold bar- Red Rouge stropping
john Lucas
Well that was a fun experiment. I took my Freshly sharpened Marples flat chisels and polished the edge (actually the whole bevel since I sharpened these with a flat bevel). I used a hard felt wheel. These were sharpened to 2000 grit. All three polished the edge to look like Chrome. I had small section of the very bottom of the bevel that wasn't sharpened to quite as high a grit because I changed the angle very slightly from what they were originally sharpened. Just for interest sake I polished this area. Without a doubt the Gold bar polished much faster and eliminated many of the smaller scratchess. The Green Aluminum Oxide bar and the red rouge appeared to polish the scratches and not remove them.
So the bottom line is, if you sharpen to a fine enough grit all 3 work just fine but the Gold bar works faster and appears to be more aggressive. I think this would be a good thing for honing turning tools that have been sharpened on grinding wheels and not sandpaper up to 2000 grit. The others probably work but tend to polish the grind marks and not level the surface (no they definitely work because I've used them for years). Stropping with whatever bar definitely improves the edge. Now how long that edge lasts vs how long it takes to do it is up to you.
I was re reading Leaonard Lee's book on sharpening and one thing stood out that is useful. If you skew the edge (think skewing a hand plane vs running it square over the board) it does 2 things. It improves the cut because effectively the ramp (the angle of the blade) is lower. It also improves the edge holding quality. To put it more simply. If your doing a paring cut or maybe a parting cut it will dull the edge the fastest and leave the poorest cut quality. If you swing the skew around to an angle like most of us do for a planing cut the cut quality will improve and the edge will stay sharp longer.
An article in Woodturning magazine years ago proved that a sharper edge will hold an edge longer because it takes longer for those peaks to wear down to the point we consider it dull. So if you strop and edge and try to use skewed cutting angles you will get the most out of your tools both in how long the edge stays sharp and how clean the cuts will be.
