Don Stephan wrote on Nov 13
th, 2016 at 11:21am:
Can you explain the situation where you want to use something like Yorkshire grit - what's being made, from what, what are prior sanding steps, what is desired final look, what is desired level of protection or desired used for the product? Perhaps there is an alternative procedure that would avoid applying wax.
Don - your question raises a very important point.
Products like Yorkshire Grit, EEE Ultrashine and Dr. Kirk's are intended to polish wood turnings to a high degree of smoothness/gloss. They can be used on plastics, but there are other products that also address those applications (such as Novus 2, Meguires, etc).
These products have gotten a lot of attention in the past few months after the introduction of Yorkshire Grit and a number of YouTube videos from the UK discussing its application.. The basic description provided by those turners is to use ordinary abrasive papers up to 240 or perhaps 320, and then switch to Yorkshire Grit for the final polish. Yorkshire Grit and it's cousins are simply a paste made from rottenstone (aka Tripoli, an abrasive), wax, perhaps with either a solvent or mineral oil added to reduce the viscosity and also serve as a lubricant. The idea is that the rottenstone particles act as an abrasive, but unlike sandpaper or abrasive mesh products where the particles are bound to a substrate, in abrasive pastes the particles are free. As a result, as the material is used, the particles break down and become finer, which means that the piece becomes progressively smoother the longer you polish it.
But the key point here is how highly polished does the piece have to be? Strictly utilitarian pieces (such as Richard Raffen's bowls that are intended to be used to hold cereal and washed in soap and water) don't need to be highly polished, and if you make them that way, the finish will quickly dull in use. Conversely, display pieces are often made with high gloss finishes, but abrasive waxes aren't the only way to get that result - you can also use conventional abrasives, apply a finish, and then buff the finish after it cures. And that finish will be harder than the gloss produced by abrasive waxes.
In my case, the application where I found abrasive waxes to be very useful was in making items for use by knitters - nostepinne and yarn caddys - where a very smooth finish was needed to avoid having the yarn snag on the wood.
So the key point here is what are you making, and what kind of finish does it require? If it is a display piece where you want it to be unusually smooth, then abrasive waxes are one technique to get that result. But there are other methods that also work very well.
On the other hand, if it is a utilitarian piece, you may not want a super smooth, highly glossy finish, and in those cases, abrasive pastes are not the right answer.