Green Compound at Harbor Freight

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manowar669

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Oct 1, 2002
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Walked in there the other day, and they have some buffing compounds. The Green one says "for fine polish on hard metals" or something. There are about 8 kinds, some for plastic, etc. Is this some kind of CrO2 compound? Anybody try it? It was around $6, maybe I'll just get some, and give it a try.
 
Hey that's what I use except I got mine for like $3 and it works pretty well except it takes a while for zdp-189 blades
 
manowar669 said:
Walked in there the other day, and they have some buffing compounds. The Green one says "for fine polish on hard metals" or something. There are about 8 kinds, some for plastic, etc. Is this some kind of CrO2 compound? Anybody try it? It was around $6, maybe I'll just get some, and give it a try.
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I hope it's better than Sears's green compound I bought. After getting Bark River's green compound (and black, sold together) I believe I can see the difference.
 
Well, I picked up a stick of this stuff tonite. It works well. I took 3 knives to it on a powerstrop leather wheel, and the results are impressive. Tried some test cutting in the garage. Sisal, nylon, and manilla rope. Plastic, tape, and cardboard. Whittles hair. Pretty decent edge compared to the white Sears rouge I was using.
 
manowar669 said:
Well, I picked up a stick of this stuff tonite. It works well. I took 3 knives to it on a powerstrop leather wheel, and the results are impressive. Tried some test cutting in the garage. Sisal, nylon, and manilla rope. Plastic, tape, and cardboard. Whittles hair. Pretty decent edge compared to the white Sears rouge I was using.
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So how much better would you rate it then the sears white compound?
 
Handamerican for starters, the green chromium oxide I have from them is not even fair to compare because it will produce a flawless mirror finish. At best you might get as fine as 3 microns with locally bought compounds. They are also designed with buffing in mind and not sharpening knife steels.

From HA you can find Chromium oxide, silicon carbide, and Boron carbide plus various grits of diamond compounds. There is also Amplex diamond paste and DMT diamond paste.

The difference is night and day and the edges will speak for themselves, trust me I've already been down that road.
 
Hand American CrO2 > Bark River Cr02 > Harbor Freight Cr02

I bought a jar of powdered Cr02 compound from a shaving supply company before that was pretty good but once I tried the HA powder and paste I don't any other Cr02. I recommend the paste as it makes cleaner and easier work of distributing the compound evenly and a little goes a long way.
 
Thanks guys - I appreciate your using our products and I'm glad that the chromox works for a lot of you. I use it to finish hone my straight razors.

The issue with bound (stick) compounds is that the mix percentage must always be in favor of the bonding agent (usually a type of wax), otherwise the stick will crumble. We found that to be the case with lime based plasters and plaster hardeners as well.

We did try to make that work but we could never get above 15% compound.

We really wanted to go ahead with using a vitrification process to form custom blocks and slips but it got too nuts.

The closest thing to that available now are ceramic rods that contain a percentage of the desired compound. It's hard to get a Mfg. to tell you the compound percentage and those that are available and seem to work well are prohibitive cost wise.

Keith
 
I have some of the HF compounds, and they are better than the stuff I found in my hometown. I hope to try some of the handamerican products soon.
 
Just go to chefs knives to go, they have the whole line of products. You can also follow the link on the HA home page.
 
Hi Folks,

I re read what I had written:

"The closest thing to that available now are ceramic rods that contain a percentage of the desired compound. It's hard to get a Mfg. to tell you the compound percentage and those that are available and seem to work well are prohibitive cost wise."

I was referring to specific compounds such as boron carbide and green SiC, which are both rated a 9.5 on the Mohs scale, and of 'ceramics' as a process.

It wasn't my intention to say that there are not some great ceramic rods out there that work very well, as a matter of fact I do use the Idahone rods and there are the black rods from Mac knives that I hear work very well, though I don't know the composition.

These rods are both effective and affordable - and they won't chew your blade up.

We did put out a steatite rod some time ago which were processed as a ceramic with a high magnesium content that worked very well. The issue was that the rod surface was a bit on the rough side & prolly around 220 grit.

A 220 grit will give you a working edge but shouldn't be used on fine blades.

One of my ambitions has been to produce ceramic rods and slips using 0.25 micron to 1 micron compounds with Mohs ratings of 9 plus with high compound concentrations.

Could someone produce one or two of these? - maybe, but as a viable commercial product you'd have to think a lot bigger in terms of materials, equipment, and production volume.

I'm rambling a bit - just didn't want people to think that I meant there were not good, top quality ceramic rods available. Like anything else you have to do some research and watch out for shills.

Last week I got my AARP card with official mag strip and ID number. I don't qualify for any discounts yet but in the small print It says I can ramble and be redundant.

So, if you catch me telling the same joke or story twice I can just flash my card.

Keith
 
handamerican said:
Hi Folks,

Last week I got my AARP card with official mag strip and ID number. I don't qualify for any discounts yet but in the small print It says I can ramble and be redundant.

So, if you catch me telling the same joke or story twice I can just flash my card.

Keith
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Thinking of my 90 year old Grandfather, I'll just say that this means that you've been around long enough to learn a few things.
 
manowar669 said:
Thinking of my 90 year old Grandfather, I'll just say that this means that you've been around long enough to learn a few things.
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Still learnin' every day brother - best to your Granddad, that's cool, he's got me by quite a few years.

I think when you hit 70 you get a free pass on swiping batteries from the drug store, or is it half price for a bad movie?

Can't retire till you're 80 nowadays anyway so I be stumbling around for awhile.

Thanks for the note,
Keith
 
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