Can anyone offer their experience using the Diamond Spray Emulsions (1 micron & 0.5 micron) on regular leather strops VS using the same 1 micron or 0.5 micron size Diamond paste on similar regular leather strops. Particularly: effect, efficiency, longevity, and ease of use. I still have paste left and a new, never used set of regular leather strops. I’m trying to decide if I want to buy the spray emulsion or just keep using the paste.
A Dutch dictionary defines and emulsion as a “concept from the chemistry with which a mixture is meant which consists of immiscible liquids which do not form stable and homogeneous mixture under normal conditions.” It seems to be the same as a spray… Is there anyone who can confirm this?
I must be wrong. Because when I look at Products/Accessories/Stropping Compounds, I see both emulsions and sprays. So I assume there is a difference between them.
I think the reason there is a difference in the way they are described is that they come from two manufacturers (Jende and Ken Schwartz). Both brands are emulsions that are dispensed by a pump actuated spray bottle. The definition of emulsion that you cited is correct. The study of emulsions is not an area in which I specialize, but I am a chemist.
Organic, do you have both? That could indeed be a reason. However, Jende does make a difference between sprays and emulsion (see this page - below)
And how do you know these emulsions come from Jende? I didn’t know he (Tom) made this stuff too. But I took a look at his website and saw he now makes a much wider range of products for the WE that were previously only available from Ken, including Shapton stones and even Nanocloth.
Jende make polycristalline diamond stuff in the same sizes and amounts WE sells. Only they also make 0.1 mu diamond emulsion (WE doesn’t sell this, but .125 CBN instead) and 0.025 mu diamond emulsion (which is not sold by WE, but WE do sell 0.050 mu diamond emulsion).
Jende makes a distinction between products that “stay mixed” (the emulsion line) vs. products that “need to be shaken” prior to use (sprays). I’m guessing one is oil based and the other is water based. (Don’t know if this is the real definition of “emulsion”, but that’s the difference).
And yes, Jende makes their own line of products now.
The particles in the sprays do settle and need to be shaken to mix them up and the emulsions do a better job of staying mixed but can also settle. Emulsions, as they are provided by Jende and Ken Schwartz, are gels with a consistency of hand sanitizer. I’ve tested the emulsions from Jende quite a bit and they are really good. I’ve got samples from Ken as well that I’m planning on testing but haven’t found the time yet. The paste works well and is very affordable but does not work as well as the emulsions.
Clay do you get better stropping results on knives with the spray emulsions than the paste? Does the spray stay on the leather any better than the paste? With the paste my leather gets shiny black and hard and I don’t feel that it’s really doing anything. When I reapply the paste to the used leather strops I don’t think it stays put like it did when the leather was new and fresh.
Marc
Clay’s answer clarifies the matter. I do have the 4 micron / 2 micron diamond emulsions from Jende but I don’t have any experience with the sprays so I didn’t know that the diamonds settle with those products. Since an emulsion is a mixture of non-miscible materials that does not rapidly separate, the diamond sprays are not emulsions and would be better classified as suspensions.
My professional experience with emulsions is that I occasionally encounter them when I’m trying to separate the layers of a water / oil mixture. Obtaining an emulsion in that scenario means you’re going to have an unfortunate day ahead of you.
How do you like the WE emulsions? Can you compare them to the sprays/pastes?
I don’t have the any of the diamond paste or diamond suspension products to compare with the emulsions. I do think that the emulsions work well.
The major differences between the Jende Sprays vs. Jende Emulsions are the obvious liquid of the sprays vs. the cream-like consistency of the emulsions. As previously mentioned, the sprays do settle more readily than the emulsions. The emulsions will also eventually settle, but at a much slower rate. Either way, a good shake before use can never hurt 
Aside from that, the real difference is the Jende emulsions have a higher concentration than the sprays. Both Jende products are water based and use the same poly diamonds.
Since the next question will inevitably be about Jende vs. Schwartz, the quality of both Jende and Schwartz’s names speak for themselves. Most notable is the alcohol content of the Jende emulsion base/evaporant is far lower than that of the Schwartz emulsions, which has a high level of alcohol.
Hey Tom, good to see you’re still alive here! The next question is not about Tom vs. Ken 
, but about poly-diamond vs. mono-diamond. Can you tell us what the exact difference is and how (and whether) poly-diamond works better than mono-diamond. I thought the now non-existant (?) HA-products, which were always the golden standard, were mono-diamond.
lol…Thanks, Mark!
The difference between the two is mono is more consistently shaped - like a pyramid, cube or rectangle, which cuts more linearly, kind of like one scratch per piece of diamond. Poly is shaped more like popped popcorn, with many facets in all directions, so it scratches more times per piece of diamond in the same space.
According to google:
Polycrystalline Diamond has many more cutting surfaces per particle, resulting in higher removal rates. As it cuts, it breaks down in its original shape, allowing for finer finishes in less time than when using monocrystalline diamond. Because polycrystalline has no cleavage planes, it cannot splinter like monocrystalline diamond. It causes less sub-surface deformation, and is excellent when polishing samples composed of different materials/hardness.
Monocrystalline - Monocrystalline Diamond provides a cost effective means for good stock removal and finish. It has a slightly irregular shape with multiple cutting edges, and is recommended for general applications where polycrystalline’s features are not required.
Do the Diamond spray emulsions apply any easier and stay on the leather strop any better than the older paste I’ve been using do? Is there any issue with over-spray when apply the spray emulsion to the leather strop I need to be careful of?
Both sprays and emulsions apply easily - just spritz or pump 
The spray does tend to radiate out, so you just need to keep the height from your stropping surface at an ideal distance so that the whole spritz lands on the strop. Emulsions pump out like hand cream, so it is a much more controlled release, which would be almost right on top of the strop.
The emulsion can be spread out pretty easily since it is a more solid base whereas the spray tends to pool more due to the watery base. It’s a trial and error process to see how much you can apply at any one time and there is the absorption rate of the stropping medium itself. Ultimately, both will dry out and you can load the strop again as necessary.
In general, the PASTES tend to come off very easily of the leather and roo strops. I think everyone here has experienced that at one point or another. Larger surface areas like bench strops tend to do better, but not much since the abrasive sits on top of the surface. The Jende Nanocloth Ultra strops, however, will hold the pastes, sprays and emulsions due to its honeycomb-like structure.
As for the emulsions and sprays on roo or cow leather, they both tend to stick better to the surface of the strop than pastes. I don’t really know why, but it could be the pores open on the leather when the wet abrasives are applied, or the liquid and base of the spray and emulsion act as a sort of glue layer from the residue as it evaporates, or some combination of both. You will still be pulling abrasive off the strop, just not as much per pass. Overall, the retention rate of the sprays and emulsion on leathers is greater than that of pastes.
I hope that helps… 
Tom, I’ve got a slightly different question, but now we’ve got you on board, I thought I might as well ask it. It was already asked in another topic, but no real answer came out of this.
My question is what you prefer and under which circumstances: diamond films or strops with (poly) diamond emulsion/spray. The diamond films WE sell are very consistent and remove metal at a good rate, so my gut reaction would be: use diamond films whenever they are available. But there must be circumstances in which strops are preferable. When do you use strops and why?
A second question is whether you prefer kangaroo strops or nanocloth strops? And when? Above you wrote nanocloth holds all sorts of stropping compounds well, but apparently so do kangaroo strops. An advantage I found out for kangaroo strops is that they have some burnishing effect, which I like.
(I asked this question somewhere else, too, and the answer I got from an Aussie was: kangaroo, of course, to reduce the kangaroo population. And indeed, when I lived in Australia, the father of a friend of mine was a kangaroo hunter. He was kicked into the hospital by a kangaroo…)
I know that the strops do have applications that the diamond films are not well suited to. For example, if you want to create a convex edge you can sharpen the bevel with multiple facets and then blend them with the strops. This works because the leather is pliable and will conform to the facets as it passes over the bevel. Thinking about it just now, I suppose you could use the diamond films to do this but you’d need to mount them on a compressible surface rather than on the glass aluminium plates.
Yes, it’s nice to be back!
You’ve asked a tough question! I approach diamonds in terms of their depth of scratch. Diamond plates abrade the deepest, next are diamond films, then strops. This holds true regardless of the grit size. For example, if you take a 3 micron DMT diamond plate, a 3 micron film, and a 4 micron loaded strop, you will see the wide range of scratch differences. I’ve taken the liberty to do that for you… The first picture is a control pic, having progressed (quickly and dirty) through a 400, 2K Chosera, then a 5K, 15K, 30K Shapton. Ignore the edge, as this was just a bevel experiment to show scratches. I hit the DMT EE for 50 strokes, then reset the edge with the 2K, 5K, 15K, 30K. Then 50 strokes with the 3 micron Jende Diamond Film, reset the edge again from 2K through 30K, and then used the Jende Nanocloth strop with 4 micron poly diamond emulsion for 50 strokes.
[attachment file=“1. start 30K Pro 0.5 micron.jpg”]
[attachment file=“2. DMT EE 3 micron x 50.jpg”]
[attachment file=“3. Jende diamond film 3 micron x 50.jpg”]
[attachment file=“4. Jende poly emulsion 4 micron x 50.jpg”]
The 30K is the white part of the control picture. The residual scratches you see are from lower grits. Like I said, it was quick and dirty…You can plainly see the DMT aggression - the mirror finish is completely removed, and at the macro level, the scratches are very visible. With the 3 micron diamond film, you clearly have scratches that do not disrupt the mirror finish, and actually look much better than the control pic! and at the 4 micron poly emulsion (close enough to 3 micron), the scratches at the angle are there, they are just minimal depth.
So to put this all together, I like plates for aggression, films for general use, including minor aggression (we have 80 micron down to 0.5 micron, so it basically acts as sharpening stones, which are slightly more aggressive than films), and strops for finishing.
As for which strops when, I personally prefer nanocloth strops with emulsions or sprays, and I reserve the clean roo and cow for final stropping only.
I hope I answered the question..
Thanks a lot, Tom. That all makes very good sense and gives good advice. (And I knew strops are a lot less aggressive than stones, but to be honest I had no clue about films.)
Still one question about the photographs of the film and the poly-emulsion. To be honest, the result of the 3 micron film looks at least as smooth to me as that of the 4 micron strops. I know the stropping compound is 4 micron and the film 3, but I’d expect the strops to result in a smoother surface. Is it my eyes? Or the focal depth of the photographs? Or something else?