TLDR: Do your nice looking kasumi finishes look a little ugly in unfavorable lighting, and do they have some bright scratches at certain angles? Please post pictures of a good finish in favorable lighting from a good angle and post the same finish in unfavorable lighting from an unfavorable angle.
Hello! Two nights ago, my girlfriend was watching a tv show that I didn’t really care for, so I decided to do some knife polishing until she was done watching her show. I wanted to try polishing with my recently acquired Shapton Glass 2000, and I had a fingerstone that I also wanted to try.
I am not great or even good at polishing, the bevels on my knife probably could have been flatter, and I did a bit of a rushed/not super careful job, so the results are not great (also please no making fun of my super worn kurouchi finish, lol). I started on my Cerax 1000. Once I was done, I moved on to my SG2000. I didn’t really like polishing with it. It doesn’t feel as nice as my Cerax 1000, the mud got pretty thick and sticky, and with my limited polishing skills, it left a more uneven polish with several bright spots. I kept working with it, but it wasn’t getting any better, so I moved onto a Narutaki fingerstone. I went until it looked like most/all of the scratches were from the fingerstone. It was nighttime and dark outside, so I was polishing and viewing the knife under harsher, bright lights above me. There was a decent amount of contrast, but there were so many terrible scratches, it looked ugly, and I was not happy with the job that I did. My girlfriend’s show ended, and I was done polishing for the night so I set the knife down to dry completely (after wiping it dry). I (once again) was reminded that polishing is more difficult than it seems, and I was left with a feeling of emptiness and a lack of satisfaction.
The next morning, I woke up and went into the kitchen. Natural light was coming into the kitchen, and I didn’t have to turn on any lights. What I remembered as an ugly finish magically turned into a half-decent looking finish in the natural light. This brought up some questions, so I took 3 pictures in the favorable, natural light and 3 pictures in unfavorable, harsher light, and I decided that I wanted to start this discussion.
Here are the photos in favorable, natural light:
Here are the photos in unfavorable/harsher light:
As you can see, I didn’t do a great job, but that is not the point here. I think that there is a very noticeable difference between how the finish looks under the two lighting conditions. If I were going to try to show off in one of the polishing threads, I might post the images with the favorable/natural light. I suspect that others might also do the same and post pictures of their knives in the most favorable lighting to show off their finish (but I also suspect that most people do a better job than I did and don’t just cherry pick decent photos from a mediocre finish). If I were to see these images in a polishing thread, I would think that the images in favorable lighting look okay/decent, but I would also say that the finishes in the unfavorable lighting look bad/mediocre. A lot of posts in polishing threads show off perfect-looking or very good looking polishes, and I am expecting that I will get those good results (from a lot of angles and lighting conditions) if I practice enough and have the right equipment. Here are the questions that I now have:
1. Are my expectations too high?
2. Do your finishes look good in all lighting conditions and all angles, or are there unfavorable angles and lighting conditions that make your actually good finishes look worse or even ugly?
3. Even in the favorable lighting, you can see small scratches from the fingerstone. Do your nice finishes have small scratches like this or no?
If you can and want to, please post pictures of what you consider to be a good finish in favorable lighting from a good angle and other images of that same finish in unfavorable lighting from a bad angle.
I hope that this is an interesting topic, and I hope that this can be a good reference of what to expect for beginners like me.
Thanks!
Hello! Two nights ago, my girlfriend was watching a tv show that I didn’t really care for, so I decided to do some knife polishing until she was done watching her show. I wanted to try polishing with my recently acquired Shapton Glass 2000, and I had a fingerstone that I also wanted to try.
I am not great or even good at polishing, the bevels on my knife probably could have been flatter, and I did a bit of a rushed/not super careful job, so the results are not great (also please no making fun of my super worn kurouchi finish, lol). I started on my Cerax 1000. Once I was done, I moved on to my SG2000. I didn’t really like polishing with it. It doesn’t feel as nice as my Cerax 1000, the mud got pretty thick and sticky, and with my limited polishing skills, it left a more uneven polish with several bright spots. I kept working with it, but it wasn’t getting any better, so I moved onto a Narutaki fingerstone. I went until it looked like most/all of the scratches were from the fingerstone. It was nighttime and dark outside, so I was polishing and viewing the knife under harsher, bright lights above me. There was a decent amount of contrast, but there were so many terrible scratches, it looked ugly, and I was not happy with the job that I did. My girlfriend’s show ended, and I was done polishing for the night so I set the knife down to dry completely (after wiping it dry). I (once again) was reminded that polishing is more difficult than it seems, and I was left with a feeling of emptiness and a lack of satisfaction.
The next morning, I woke up and went into the kitchen. Natural light was coming into the kitchen, and I didn’t have to turn on any lights. What I remembered as an ugly finish magically turned into a half-decent looking finish in the natural light. This brought up some questions, so I took 3 pictures in the favorable, natural light and 3 pictures in unfavorable, harsher light, and I decided that I wanted to start this discussion.
Here are the photos in favorable, natural light:
Here are the photos in unfavorable/harsher light:
As you can see, I didn’t do a great job, but that is not the point here. I think that there is a very noticeable difference between how the finish looks under the two lighting conditions. If I were going to try to show off in one of the polishing threads, I might post the images with the favorable/natural light. I suspect that others might also do the same and post pictures of their knives in the most favorable lighting to show off their finish (but I also suspect that most people do a better job than I did and don’t just cherry pick decent photos from a mediocre finish). If I were to see these images in a polishing thread, I would think that the images in favorable lighting look okay/decent, but I would also say that the finishes in the unfavorable lighting look bad/mediocre. A lot of posts in polishing threads show off perfect-looking or very good looking polishes, and I am expecting that I will get those good results (from a lot of angles and lighting conditions) if I practice enough and have the right equipment. Here are the questions that I now have:
1. Are my expectations too high?
2. Do your finishes look good in all lighting conditions and all angles, or are there unfavorable angles and lighting conditions that make your actually good finishes look worse or even ugly?
3. Even in the favorable lighting, you can see small scratches from the fingerstone. Do your nice finishes have small scratches like this or no?
If you can and want to, please post pictures of what you consider to be a good finish in favorable lighting from a good angle and other images of that same finish in unfavorable lighting from a bad angle.
I hope that this is an interesting topic, and I hope that this can be a good reference of what to expect for beginners like me.
Thanks!
