+1


I just recently ordered some belts from Gary and have spoken to him on the phone. He seems like a pretty good guy and took some time to discuss his belts with me on the phone. He apparently provides belts for some other knife-makers.

Gary Pearce

Or Penny (Gary said she may answer emails ???? - I have not spoken with her)

Phone: 814-938-2379

Email - pearce1935@comcast.net



Gary confirmed what Jeff said: No web address - He should probably look into that.


Gary carries a large variety of: Aluminum Oxide, Silicon Carbide and Zirconia belts. But, he doesn't really have the ceramic... which I am not sure most people really need unless production knife-making (??????).

Aluminum Oxide is commonly found at hardware stores and common for wood-working. Aluminum Oxide will grind steel. But, there is a noticable improvement over Aluminum Oxide for steel and difference in quality of cut, smoothness, speed, lack of heat and wearability with better belts.
Silicon Carbide is "better" for working with steel than Aluminum Oxide.
Once you use better belts (on steel) than Aluminum Oxide, you won't want aluminum oxide belts anymore.

Gary also carries a variety of Zirconia belts.
Gary does not carry Ceramic belts.
Zirconia belts are supposed to cut cleaner and cooler than even Silicon Carbide and last longer.

I have not personally used either Ceramic or Zirconia belts myself yet. But, Ceramic is supposed to last even longer and cut even cooler than Zirconia. But, the Ceramic and Zirconia belts are mostly coarse grits. And so far, I find for "My" hobbiest/modification purposes, the Silicon Carbide seems to be good enough. But, who knows... maybe if I tried the Zirconia and Ceramic belts, I would never want Silicon Carbide again (???) - .... at least for the coarser grits.

For finer grits, you have to go back to Silicon Carbide. Although, I am not sure why they don't have the finer grits in at least Zirconia (?????)

Considering the Zirconia and Ceramic belts are primarily just in the coarse grits, you need to make sure you are good with your belt sander as a tool first. The coarse grits like 80, 120, 150 and such remove steel VERY fast. Without a good amount of practice and experience, those grits can make a knife look like a MANGLED piece of mess very fast if not careful.

**** As is commonly stated, practice on CHEAP pieces of steel or cheap knives before going to a good knife.

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I have not ordered from ANY of the following, but I have been collecting the info from various posters who have commented on their products or some sort of worthy experience:


ECON Abrasives

McMaster-Carr

Tru-Grit

Supergrit

Lee Valley

Jantz Supply

Knifeandgun.com

Texas Knifemaker's Supply

USA Knife Maker Supply


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Most importantly (IMO) <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />, you want a Leather belt for that EXTRA hair popping results. You actually might want 2-3 for different compounds.
Once you load a given grit compound on a belt, you should keep that belt with the same compound ONLY. - So, multiple belts for multiple grits.

Once used, they turn black from metal. So, they can get harder to determine which belt is for which grit. I haven't needed to yet, but I have heard some people put the belts in a labeled bag. I think there are probably other ways to label a belt (????).

This company makes a variety of sizes of leather belts and says they can make custom sizes: Surgi-Sharp ... But, then they say they don't sell directly. So, I guess you have to contact them to see "Where" you would buy a custom sized leather belt (????).

Here are just a couple places I have found that carry the Surgi-Sharp belts:

The Woodcraft Shop

Best price on 1x42: Tru-Grit (*Have to search a bit, but it is in there by size at the bottom of the 1x42's <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> )


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I do not think you need to use the black compound on a leather belt. The black compound is pretty course and probably about like 600 - 1000 grit (Theoretically that would be about 16-9 micron ???? - But, I can't tell for sure - I have seen some people say the Black compound is about 3 micron - But, I cannot personally believe that.
Green compound might be about 3-6 micron or so ???? - Again, hard to say.
I would guess the white (that I use) is probably about 1-1.5 micron ???).

My black and green compounds are Bark River compounds. I bought my white at the hardware store. They last a LOOOOOOOONG time.

But, different makers could and do use different grits with different colors. So, keep that in mind.

In any event, I personally feel that the black that I use is good if needing heavy refining on a hand strop. If using power tools, I think you can easily skip some grits including the black compound because of the speed.

I think you can easily go from 400-600 grit belts (about 23-16 micron) and skip down to green compound - which I guess to be about 3-6 micron.

A lot of people use the micron film belts. But, I have not used those yet. So, I don't know what to say about them. But, 9 and 15 micron are common grits.

Obviously, there are a LOT of different techniques and ways to get sharp knives.

For powered leather honing, I would probably ideally have:
- "Most Likely" one belt with green compound,
- "Definitely" one with white or pink compound
- "Most Likely" one with 1.0 - 0.5 micron chromium oxide or diamond spray.

Most people should be able to get blades sharp enough on 400 - 600 grit that a light finishing buff with white or pink compound will be sufficient. If done right, white or pink compound edges will mirror polish and will easily shave and push cut paper.

If you want to go finer than white or pink compound, check with:

Hand American

Hand American - Diamond and Chromium Oxide

Keith De'Grau (owner) of Hand American has developed a good reputation in the sharpening industry.

I purchased some 0.25 Diamond Spray (recently) and it is VERY fine. Arguably too fine. You can't feel the grit between your fingers. By hand, it was WAY too slow for me and after a few minutes stropping by hand, I could not notice results.
However, when I sprayed the 0.25 Diamond spray on my 1x30 power leather belt (* and after letting the belt dry about 24 hours - wet leather flops and bounces too much!) with the speed of the fast belt, I could get VERY sharp edges. But, I have to just barely touch the leading edge. I can't strop the full edge with that fine a grit and get much results.

Even though with a powered belt, I can get results with the 0.25 diamond spray, after using the 0.25, I would recommend 0.5 - 1.0 micron to others and not get overly edge greedy with 0.25 micron. In the future, I will go to 0.5 - 1.0 myself - as I believe it will result in edges just as "noticably" sharp, but work faster and more efficiently (???).

Further, even though I have not personally tried it yet, I would MOST LIKELY recommend the MUCH Cheaper Chromium Oxide over the Diamond.

I have read MANY who say the cheaper Hand American "Chromium Oxide" paste or powder works JUST AS WELL as the diamond. And in hind site, I probably should have just gone with the Chromium Oxide. But, I have a particular ZDP knife hardened at about 64HC that I wasn't sure if the chromium would work well on... In hind site... and with further research after purchasing the diamond spray, I think the chromium oxide would have been fine. The Chromium Oxide isn't as hard as diamond - nothing is. But, it is VERY hard and should be more than sufficient at cutting (sharpening) even VERY hard knife steels quite easily.
Might really only need diamonds if sharpening Carbide steel or similar (????).

Longevity of the diamond vs. chromium oxide might be an argument, but I am VERY confident that the chromium oxide BLOWS diamonds away in the "Price/performance" catagory for sharpening knives.

Anyway, I went with the 0.25 micron diamond spray. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/loopy.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/paperbag.gif" alt="" />
But, for 99.999% of everyone elses uses and needs (including my own - including the 64HC ZDP knife), everything I read about the chromium oxide from Hand American is supposed to be PLENTY good and WAY cheaper

To compare price:

The Diamond spray is sold in 4 and 8 ounce bottles, but "REALLY" you are just buying a certain "Gram" weight of diamond mixed in a certain Ounce weight of solution (and Hand American explains as much on their web-site)

But, here is the (approximate) math for you if you break down how much diamond in ounces you get vs. Chromium Oxide per ounce:

Diamond 12 Carat (weight) ($15.60) = 0.085 ounce = $183.53/ounce
Diamond 18 Carat (weight) ($23.40) = 0.127 ounce = $184.25/ounce
Diamond 21 Carat (weight) ($27.30) = 0.148 ounce = $184.46/ounce

Chromium Oxide Powder (99.9% pure) (Sold in ounces - Weight ???)

2 ounces (weight ?) = $12.00 = $6.00/ounce
4 ounces (weight ?) = $18.00 = $4.50/ounce

Chromium Oxide Liquid/Semi Past (75% chromium oxide or higher)

Unfortunately, this is likley ounces in liquid "Volume" - not weight (????)
But:

2 ounces (volume ?) = $15.00 = $7.50/ounce
4 ounces (volume ?) = $21.00 = $5.25/ounce


**** Unfortunately, the use of the term "OUNCE" in both weight and volume in our measuring system is ENTIRELY "IDIOTIC" AND "RETARDED"!!!
There is NO "real" direct corrolation between an ounce volume vs. an ounce in weight. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/doh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbdn.gif" alt="" /> - if you cook a lot, you can probably appreciate the stupidity of the term ounce being used for two "Different" forms of measurement.

IMO, we should all move to the "Logical" metric system. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />
And, in return, everyone speak English. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />


Anyway, if you take about $184 per ounce of diamonds divided by $4.50 per ounce of chromium oxide, the Diamond spray is close to 41 times more expensive. The diamonds will likely last longer. But, not nearly that much longer. Ultimately, you just have to clean and re-load strops.


Anyway, leather belts with fine sub-1.0 "micron" compounds do not do much shaping of the edge, just fine polishing and/or fine honing. So, the shaping needs to be done with higher grits. Grits much under 1.0 micron just barely refine the very edge.


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Unfortunately, there is a LOT of info out there that can get confusing in regards to "Grit" vs. "Micron" - mostly regarding belts and paper products, I find a LOT of "Significant" descrepencies in different grit/micron charts or vendor grit/micron claims - especially in the finer grits/micron ratings. -

Most US vendors will use (US) "CAMI" industry standards (Grits we know from sandpaper like 80, 100, 150, 220, 320, 400, 600, etc.) which seems to allow for a large variance in error margins <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> ).

But, for finer grits where they might sometimes use 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500 "CAMI" terms, they switch over to "Micron" - which they should IMO as Micron terms are the most accurate.
However, when defining "Micron" for comparison, they often compare with "Mesh" Equivalency number - which are NOT the same as US CAMI Grits. ... and hence the confusion.

"Mesh Equivalent" numbers are mostly "Theoretical" and VERY deceptive numbers - especially in the finer grits since mesh can't realistically sort fine media down to a certain size and the "mesh" numbers are based on the theory of having an actuall "mesh" wire sorting - where at the VERY fine grits, the thickness of the wire actually is too much a factor in sorting. So, actual micron measurements mean something. Mesh numbers are crap in the finer grits IMO.




So, I think that just takes some experimenting and practice - again mostly in regards to belts and paper.

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If interested, a LOT of VERY TECHNICAL, but pretty cool reading can be found:

Experiments on Knife Sharpening - Verhoeven

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Very technical bladeforums thread (with good explanations about grit vs. micron vs. mesh on page 3: Verhoeven Experiments on Knife Sharpening--Wow!


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