Sharpening chisels and gouges

[TNMANDO]

I'm having trouble finding a local supplier of polishing and rubbing compounds to use with my leather strop for fine sharpening. Does anyone know of a readily available substitute that I can find at Home Depot or Walmart. I don't want to spend 5 dollars to ship a 3 dollar product.
Thanks

[Gavin Baird]

Look for Chromium Oxide that usually appears as a solid block.

I know that Lee Valley in Canada carries this material....G
I wouldn't worry about the $ if what you want is the best way to go...G

[Dru Lee Parsec]

Rockler also carries it. You can get it via www.Rockler.com

[douglas2cats]

I've got an (very) old box of assorted compounds in stick form that came from Sears. I think these are intended to be used with a buffing wheel, but may work fine with a leather strop too. I just checked their site to see if they still carry it. The packaging is different but this looks like the same critter.

http://www.sears.com/sr....2896000 (http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.do?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&vertical=TOOL&pid=00902896000)

Added to original post:
Forgot to mention the reason I still have some of these compounds. Switched a few years ago to something referred to as the 'Scary Sharp' method that you might be interested in. It's basically sharpening with adhesive backed sandpaper stuck to plate glass. Whether the method is actually better or my technique with my old method sucked, I can't say, but I've gotten better results with this for chisels and plane irons than any combination of waterstones & polishing compound that I'd tried before. For the last few grits I'm using some microfine paper from Lee Valley.
http://www.leevalley.com/wood....1,43072 (http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.asp?SID=&ccurrency=2&page=33004&category=1,43072)

http://www.shavings.net/SCARY.HTM