Sharpening paste for tools

Hey all,

I'm getting into woodworking in addition to being a vegan virtuoso in the kitchen. I sharpen stuff all the time. But for a really fine edge, you want a strop and some honing/buffing/sharpening paste. I found a vegan strop through a company out of Portland. Now I'm trying to find a paste with very fine grit for use on the strop, but it seems like most all of them are either petroleum-based or use tallow or beeswax. Any thoughts on a DIY recipe for honing paste? Or have you maybe found a brand that isn't made from dinosaur farts or animal-byproducts?

a quick search for "rottenstone" found Tripoli powder... so, I'm guessing that ANY dry powder component of prepared pastes or bars of polishing material can be had.
Then mix them with whatever you'd prefer, whether it be a vegetable oil, water, plant based wax.

Technically the stropping can be done without anything applied to the strop. The honing on your stone(s) is going to create what is called a "wire edge" or a "burr" which is an ever-so-fine amount of material left behind by the stone, and hanging on by almost nothing at the edge.
Stropping "rubs" that wire edge off, exposing the sharp edge.

Kenneth Elwell wrote:a quick search for "rottenstone" found Tripoli powder... so, I'm guessing that ANY dry powder component of prepared pastes or bars of polishing material can be had.
Then mix them with whatever you'd prefer, whether it be a vegetable oil, water, plant based wax.

Technically the stropping can be done without anything applied to the strop. The honing on your stone(s) is going to create what is called a "wire edge" or a "burr" which is an ever-so-fine amount of material left behind by the stone, and hanging on by almost nothing at the edge.
Stropping "rubs" that wire edge off, exposing the sharp edge.

Yes but the strop gets loaded up with the burr over time. The paste and oil helps stop that from happening.

Another approach is to use an extremely fine stone to do the honing. A 16000 grit water stone isn't going to leave a burr. Here's a video by Rob Cosman about sharpening plane blades

D.W. Stratton wrote:Yes but the strop gets loaded up with the burr over time. The paste and oil helps stop that from happening.

Yes, if you are pre-loading the strop, there's "less room at the inn" for the burrs to accumulate... Bear in mind, that almost all sharpening tools are expendable/exhaustable and also need re-flattening, cleaning when clogged, dressing and reloading with grit...replacing.

The paste and oil in a polishing compound act more as a carrier for the grit than a method for lubricating/removing swarf as water or oil would be, on a water or oil stone.