CBN compound and other options for power stropping

[Christian Castillo]

Hi,

I'm curious as to whether anyone has tried using cubic boron nitride for power stropping. I just purchased a belt grinder and a leather belt, and I am know looking at my option for which compound to apply to the belt ( .5 micron CBN/CRO/Diamond ). Are any of the aforementioned compounds superior in a power stropping application to the others? Thanks for your time.

[David Weaver]

CBN is intended to replace diamond in places where diamond will migrate into iron at high temperature. I don't think there's a reason to use it as a hand or low speed low temperature lap.

Flexcut gold is nice on a belt if you're coming from something coarser than an 8k stone to that step. There's another compound called white something or other that also works well. Both of those are pretty expensive for what they are.

Other than that, if you're coming from something relatively fine, then green chromium oxide bars (which i understand are mixed with aluminum oxide) make a nice compound. Most are fine and not very fast cutting, though. The less pure they are the more aluminum oxide they'll probably have and the faster and deeper they'll cut.

Diamonds will be a little more fast cutting, but I don't think I'd want them on something with a belt, and abrasive for abrasive, diamond will generally finish a little more coarse and deep for the same size vs. chromium oxide, which I haven't seen in big particles for cheap itself.