Finally started today with some of the nano-cloth studies. I want to thank Ken Schwartz for generously providing enough nano-cloth strops mounted to aluminum blanks to conduct the study.

I started by preparing a bunch of samples with super polished bevels so we would be able to clearly see the effects of various abrasives. Here is the first sample polished clean (or clean enough):



I then used various abrasives on the nano-cloth, hoping to isolate pure abrasives, restoring the edge back to smooth in between each iteration.

Here they are in ascending grit size, fine to coarse:


.125um CBN



.5um CBN



.5um Diamond

More to come...

1um Diamond - First Round


1um Diamond - Second Round


15um CBN

Very interesting results, Clay. Your experiments show us things we could, until now, only speculate about.

The roo strops work as incredibly as they did before. (Assuming roo was used to create the first picture). However, there’s quite a few things I don’t quite understand.

• The .125 um CBN spay seems to create a regular pattern of tiny scratches, probably like one would expect. However, the .5 um CBN spray doesn’t seem to add a regular pattern of coarser scratches. Instead we see only a few, but quite large scratches.
• The .5 um diamond spray creates a regular scratch pattern again, as one would expect. However, the 1 um diamond spray hardly seems to create any scratches; at least they seem tinier than the ones created by the .5 um diamond spray
• The 15 um CBN spray then again works as I expected: a regular pattern of quite coarse scratches.

Have you got any idea what is going on?

What I also wondered is what the effect is of the .25 um spray (I assume) on the roo strops. The edge is almost fully smooth, which I’d attribute to the burnishing power of the (somewhat wet?) roo strops. How come no scratches are visible like they are with the even finer .125 um diamond spray on nanocloth strops? Is the burnishing power of the roo stops so much stronger than the abrasive power of the .25 um spray?

Thanks Mark - I can't say I was surprised by the results, I've seen them before, but I am still uncertain as to the mechanism. My best guess is as you say - the roo is extremely effective in burnishing the surface, smoothing ridges above what the .25 diamonds it's loaded with are able to cut. I think we're seeing about what I expected from the nano-cloth - straight abrasion consistent with the particle sizes though I'll wait until the bigger objective lens is operable before trying to measure the scratches. I will conduct another test, hopefully tomorrow with plain kangaroo, lightly moistened. If it burnishes effectively without any abrasive compound then I think we'll have part of our answer.

mark76 wrote:

Not really related to the nano cloth, but is the top sort of bluish area at the top of the bevel the actual edge width, burr, or optical illusion?

cbwx34 wrote:


I think that's just a visual artifact.

That was my 4th choice. . .

This is some really cool stuff. Now I'm up in the air about my first round of upgrades and addons to my kit.

Is there a good rule of thumb for which level of abrasive is the entry level for the nano-cloth giving optimal results, or can you use just about anything on them equally well? Would both kangaroo and nano-cloth perform equally well for the coarser polish?

Perhaps the next comparison could be showing the same compound on each type of strop? It would be really interesting to see how the standard pro kit 5/3.5 micron diamond pastes look on each leather type and nano-cloth. No rest for the Wicked (Edge) I suppose

Good questions. I think the kangaroo is best used in the finer ranges, maybe 5 microns and lower. I haven't done any testing yet with the kangaroo at coarser grits, but off the top of my head, I think it wouldn't be the best use of the roo's awesome burnishing properties. I think the nano-cloth should be appropriate for any grit, especially when you don't want burnishing and want the micro teeth to extend all the way to the edge.

ApexGS wrote:

Thanks for the info, Clay. I'm pondering my first bundle of goodies for the kit, possibly including a set of each or just jumping to two nano-cloth sets since there's some price difference. When you're on a budget a few bucks counts

All this info on the nano-cloth has me leaning toward them, since I can certainly pick up more later!