# Polishing knives



## T85 (Jan 12, 2020)

hello my fellow knives enthusiast! I have a couple of honyaki sujihiki and yanagiba that I want to mirror polish. I have no idea of to do it. Can some body here tell me how to do it? What would I need? Any answers or links would be helpful, thanks guys.


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## gman (Jan 13, 2020)

a rabbit hole opens up in front of you. jump into it? [Y/N]


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## T85 (Jan 13, 2020)

gman said:


> a rabbit hole opens up in front of you. jump into it? [Y/N]


Lol this would be my first knife rabbit hole! So Yes head first


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## M1k3 (Jan 13, 2020)

I've done mirror polishing before. It was very satisfying. That said, I'd only do it again if I was paid a decent amount to do it.


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## TRPV4 (Jan 13, 2020)

What sort of finish are you starting from?


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## Garner Harrison (Jan 13, 2020)

If no one minds I could also do with some help with polishing, just got my Mazaki knife and I want to know more about how to polish it properly. Without scratching the Hira/Tsura and messing up the Shinogi line.


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## TRPV4 (Jan 13, 2020)

Garner Harrison said:


> If no one minds I could also do with some help with polishing, just got my Mazaki knife and I want to know more about how to polish it properly. Without scratching the Hira/Tsura and messing up the Shinogi line.


You got into this quite quick didn't you!


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## Garner Harrison (Jan 13, 2020)

TRPV4 said:


> You got into this quite quick didn't you!



Into knives? Or into looking around into how to polish my knife


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## TRPV4 (Jan 13, 2020)

Garner Harrison said:


> Into knives? Or into looking around into how to polish my knife


Both lol (sorry for hijacking thread)


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## T85 (Jan 13, 2020)

TRPV4 said:


> What sort of finish are you starting from?


I want to start with my 1095 honyaki sujihiki. It’s has a nice patina right now, so I guess the first step would be to remove the patina, but I don’t know what the best way to do it as I’m also new to this


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## T85 (Jan 13, 2020)

Garner Harrison said:


> If no one minds I could also do with some help with polishing, just got my Mazaki knife and I want to know more about how to polish it properly. Without scratching the Hira/Tsura and messing up the Shinogi line.


Jump right in bro! This rabbit hole is wide


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## ian (Jan 13, 2020)

T85 said:


> I want to start with my 1095 honyaki sujihiki. It’s has a nice patina right now, so I guess the first step would be to remove the patina, but I don’t know what the best way to do it as I’m also new to this



The patina will come off no matter what if you’re going to start polishing. If you want to take it off without changing the existing finish much, use flitz or simichrome or another metal polish. But don’t bother if you’re then going to polish it.

I’ve only ever tried to mirror polish something with sandpaper, which works, but is a huge pain. You just start at a low grit and go higher and higher till you can’t see scratches. It helps if you alternate the direction of movement when you switch grits so you can verify that you have removed the previous scratches. I was only doing a 135 mm petty... I wish you luck on your yanagiba....

Probably most will say that to preserve the crisp shinogi on your yanagiba you should at least use sandpaper attached to a hard, flat backing, or preferably use stones instead. I’ll let them tell you that, though. I have no real experience here.


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## Dendrobatez (Jan 13, 2020)

If you're looking to go the sandpaper route for this then Nick Wheeler videos are a good place to start for hand sanding technique.
I agree with @M1k3 though, in that it's a long process and would have to be something special for me to take it to a mirror.


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## gman (Jan 13, 2020)

i'm don't have a ton of experience, but the couple of knives i've polished so far i did entirely on stones, and using that method, the first thing you will discover is whether the grind has high and low spots. probably start with a medium grit and you will find out pretty quickly if there are spots where a flat stone just can't reach. from there decide whether you want to go to the effort of dropping down to a course grit stone to flatten the bevel, or if you want to switch to sandpaper. i believe you can keep a crisper shinogi if you stick with nice flat stones, but it will be a lot more work.


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## Garner Harrison (Jan 14, 2020)

Sorry if it seems like I'm trying to hijack the thread but I really want some advice on polishing my new knife and I think the advice I get could also help out T85. 

Ive attached some pictures of the knife for reference. The blade is sharpened via the hamaguri technique from the store and I know how to maintain that thanks to Jon's videos, but the source of my trouble is the tip section and the "fake" shinogi line. The shinogi line is like others have said in other threads, there and is not there at the same time as it is rounded. Ive talked to others about this and so far I'm towards removing the near mirror polish on the hira if it seems like I cant maintain it since I plan on getting finger stones later.

The finish I'm going for is a kasumi finish, so I want to mainly focus on that and Im wondering if I just do hamaguri sharpening would it be likely I start to mess with the unique shinogi line. Another question would be if I do sharpening it would I eventually end up with a harder shinogi line if I do not round it while sharpening? I wont try and make this happen as I dont plan on removing that much material just for aesthetic. Finally is there any videos, tips and other threads I have missed that would help me with polishing/sharpening the tip section of this knife? Specifically this style bevel towards the tip, as I'm a very unsure about it (e.g. where to apply pressure and how to hamaguri sharpen it). 

Thanks in advance to whoever responds! And I hope T85 also gets some nice help out of this


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## T85 (Jan 14, 2020)

gman said:


> i'm don't have a ton of experience, but the couple of knives i've polished so far i did entirely on stones, and using that method, the first thing you will discover is whether the grind has high and low spots. probably start with a medium grit and you will find out pretty quickly if there are spots where a flat stone just can't reach. from there decide whether you want to go to the effort of dropping down to a course grit stone to flatten the bevel, or if you want to switch to sandpaper. i believe you can keep a crisper shinogi if you stick with nice flat stones, but it will be a lot more work.


Thanks. I highest grit stone that I have now is 6000. Do I need a higher grit? Perhaps buying super high grit sand paper is cheapest way, but I do want to nice shinogi to stick out


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## M1k3 (Jan 14, 2020)

Use a stiff backing on the sandpaper. Cork, piece of wood, rubber block, etc.


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## T85 (Jan 14, 2020)

Dendrobatez said:


> If you're looking to go the sandpaper route for this then Nick Wheeler videos are a good place to start for hand sanding technique.
> I agree with @M1k3 though, in that it's a long process and would have to be something special for me to take it to a mirror.


I’m definitely going to watch those videos tomorrow!


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## T85 (Jan 14, 2020)

So How many hours (average) would it take to take 270mm to a mirror polish?


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## Alder26 (Jan 14, 2020)

It takes longer as the grits get higher. But as an example it took me 2 hours to do a 1000 grit polish on one side of my watanabe


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## Dendrobatez (Jan 14, 2020)

4 hours for a 240mm k tip like this, key is to make sure you get all of those lower grit scratches out - a lot of times you wont see them again until you hit 2k grit. If it's pretty reactive like this mazaki itll get a fairly smooth patina real quick.


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## nutmeg (Jan 14, 2020)

T85 said:


> I want to start with my 1095 honyaki sujihiki. It’s has a nice patina right now, so I guess the first step would be to remove the patina, but I don’t know what the best way to do it as I’m also new to this



Mirror on honyaki is hardcore.
The problem is the surface. One may believe the core on his clad knife is mega clean but put on a larger surface like a honyaki, every single scratch will appear at many angles of view. You may have seen pictures here and there on Instagram and you thought it's clean but in reality it's scratchy.
(I'm not saying all the mirror on any honyaki you've seen look lazy and ugly in real but more than you think)
And a clean mirror to maintain is challenging if you want to use the knife.

I don't know what grit/stone I would use. Generally above 3k the surface began to look scratchy so I finished cleanly on soft Uchigumori.
I tried high grit synth, some other very fine Jnats.. never got a clean surface.
Also, using stones means that the geometry is perfect, without any low spots and this doesn't exist, even on very expensive knives.

If I had to do the job, I would do it only with buffer wheel and try to keep in mind that scratches- even large are not such a big problem.


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## nutmeg (Jan 14, 2020)

T85 said:


> So How many hours (average) would it take to take 270mm to a mirror polish?



The time depends on your strategy and on how flexible your mind is with cleanness and mirror intensity.
Admitting you have a full time job, you need sleep, eat etc.. and you don't have any buffer wheel or machine:
it's now 10:15 pm..


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## nutmeg (Jan 14, 2020)

..you can't finish this week


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## gman (Jan 14, 2020)

a conservative estimate would be 2 hours per side, per grit. i have a 10 stone progression from extra extra course diamond to 12k synthetic, so that's 40 hours total, but i spread that over a few weeks. i'm sure there are faster ways to do it, but i enjoy the meditative process as much as the final result.

if you want to do the choil and spine too that would be all wet/dry sandpaper work, and best to do it first to avoid accidentally scratching the blade later.


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## pentryumf (Jan 14, 2020)

*chime*
I would echo Nutmeg, it took me close to 32 hrs to take a2 270 gyuto to near mirror, using 400 to 20000. A close to mirror is more than doable if you can put in the time.......a long time.
Optical fibre polishing pads to 0.1 micron will produce mirror, and would be absurd. Near mirror, sandpaper and patience, the last of my shinogi came out with okudo suita finger stones. It was a blast but I won't do it again.


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## ian (Jan 14, 2020)

pentryumf said:


> it took me close to 32 hrs





pentryumf said:


> It was a blast



Y’all indulge in a peculiar brand of masochism. My arm joints all hurt reading this thread.


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## harlock0083 (Jan 15, 2020)

I've polished a few knives, after 20+ hours in I stop and think about all the bad choices I've made and then I go cry in basement.


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## SilverSwarfer (Jan 15, 2020)

Here’s a Shi.han I sanded to “near mirror.” I put about 6hrs into this, using 800-1k-1.5k-3k sandpapers of various types. I wrapped some durable disposable foodservice towels around a 1” square wooden block about 3.5” long. I found that using some Autosol and adding some 3k SIC powder made the work go faster. As I progressed grits I went perpendicular to the last, always “pulling” with pressure (sanding pressure 1 direction only). Work was spread over about 3 weeks.

Pics aren’t great. Apologies. There is a pic showing original finish.


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## da_mich* (Jan 15, 2020)

Honyaki? Sujihiki? Yanagiba? Mirror polish?  That sounds very crazy. I know how to mirror polish a blade very fast and easy but i don´t tell you how to rape your Honyaki knife . I will not go to jail for aid to rape.


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## T85 (Jan 16, 2020)

nutmeg said:


> The time depends on your strategy and on how flexible your mind is with cleanness and mirror intensity.
> Admitting you have a full time job, you need sleep, eat etc.. and you don't have any buffer wheel or machine:
> it's now 10:15 pm..


Lol Yup full time cook here, but I guess I could have project knife to work before 10:15 lol


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## T85 (Jan 16, 2020)

harlock0083 said:


> I've polished a few knives, after 20+ hours in I stop and think about all the bad choices I've made and then I go cry in basement.


Hahahahahaha you guys are making me doubt my decision to mirror my knife, I mean how painful can it be


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## T85 (Jan 16, 2020)

SilverSwarfer said:


> Here’s a Shi.han I sanded to “near mirror.” I put about 6hrs into this, using 800-1k-1.5k-3k sandpapers of various types. I wrapped some durable disposable foodservice towels around a 1” square wooden block about 3.5” long. I found that using some Autosol and adding some 3k SIC powder made the work go faster. As I progressed grits I went perpendicular to the last, always “pulling” with pressure (sanding pressure 1 direction only). Work was spread over about 3 weeks.
> 
> Pics aren’t great. Apologies. There is a pic showing original finish.


Nice, I have the sandpapers in the mail. I think I will go with paper. Not sure I want to buy stones.


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## T85 (Jan 16, 2020)

da_mich* said:


> Honyaki? Sujihiki? Yanagiba? Mirror polish?  That sounds very crazy. I know how to mirror polish a blade very fast and easy but i don´t tell you how to rape your Honyaki knife . I will not go to jail for aid to rape.


Honyaki +sujihiki + mirror = ?


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## kayman67 (Jan 16, 2020)

T85 said:


> Nice, I have the sandpapers in the mail. I think I will go with paper. Not sure I want to buy stones.



100% doable, but at some point you will get into polishing paste territory and that means some kind of high rpm to make it efficient. It can be done by hand, but takes days. No one can actually do this 8 hours straight.


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## M1k3 (Jan 16, 2020)

T85 said:


> Hahahahahaha you guys are making me doubt my decision to mirror my knife, I mean how painful can it be



I've said previously, first time is satisfying. Then you say F* that!


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## Garner Harrison (Jan 16, 2020)

I might be wrong here but with the paste stuff, that sounds like you could just whip out an orbital sander with a appropriate pad and go nuts with it


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## kayman67 (Jan 16, 2020)

Some people use similar stuff even for sanding. I never did, so can't really comment.


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## T85 (Jan 18, 2020)

M1k3 said:


> I've said previously, first time is satisfying. Then you say F* that!


Well I guess I’m going to do one just to cross it out from the list, sandpapers should be here tomorrow so it’ll time to climb the mountain


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## JAMMYPANTZ (Jan 20, 2020)

I had some leftover cork and I attached pieces of sandpaper of varying grits to the backing. I thought it turned out pretty well, but attaching the sandpaper to something saved my fingers my blisters when I decided to chase mirror polish finishes on my knives


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## T85 (Jan 22, 2020)

JAMMYPANTZ said:


> I had some leftover cork and I attached pieces of sandpaper of varying grits to the backing. I thought it turned out pretty well, but attaching the sandpaper to something saved my fingers my blisters when I decided to chase mirror polish finishes on my knives
> View attachment 69384
> View attachment 69385


Thank you, I’m going to do that! Looks like I would also make it a lot easier


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## inferno (Jan 25, 2020)

its very hard and time consuming to mirror polish on stones. since you need to keep it all flat during the trip. it can be done no problem but its a lot faster with sandpapers imo. at about 1200 its starts to get shiny and at about 1500 or so it starts to get mirrory. then you only have about 8500 to go. it took me about 3-5h to get a mac pro santoku to 1500. and i had everything from 80 to 1500 grit.

on stones you would be looking at multiples of this time at the very least. since you also need to flatten every surface. but i have taken bevels up to 12k.

then i sent it to my buddy that used a drillpress and cheap kit with 3 different polishing compunds and a cloth disc and it took him about 10 minutes to _actually really_ mirror polish it with that gear....

machines man, machines....


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## ian (Jan 25, 2020)

JAMMYPANTZ said:


> I had some leftover cork and I attached pieces of sandpaper of varying grits to the backing. I thought it turned out pretty well, but attaching the sandpaper to something saved my fingers my blisters when I decided to chase mirror polish finishes on my knives
> View attachment 69384
> View attachment 69385



So, I often find that I go through one of those small pieces of sandpaper like every 3 minutes. Do you keep attaching them again and again? If so, how do you do this quickly?


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## JAMMYPANTZ (Jan 26, 2020)

ian said:


> So, I often find that I go through one of those small pieces of sandpaper like every 3 minutes. Do you keep attaching them again and again? If so, how do you do this quickly?



Hmm how are you sanding and polishing your knives and how long are you spending on each grit level? I've only needed to reattach new pieces of sandpaper once every 3-4 polishes of my Shig, so for me, it's definitely longer than 3 minutes per sandpaper...The suggestion to sand in one direction is not only effective in achieving a really nice polish, but I've also found that sanding in one direction maximizes and maintains the integrity of the sandpaper as well (for the most part). If you can still see metal removal, I'd refrain from swapping out new pieces of sandpaper. Until I don't really see any metal removal at all, for example on the lowest grit, I haven't really found a need to replace it. I think it also depends on how long you want to spend polishing your knives and how much finesse you want out of it. To take a knife from 300 to 2500 usually takes me like 2.5 hours and sometimes more if I missed a scratch...which my wife detests haha. 

When I finish each grit level, I make sure to rinse off any metal from the sandpaper. And when I do need to replace the sandpaper, I'll heat up the sandpaper with a blowdryer and remove the existing piece and reattach a new one with a little bit of epoxy glue. I have found, though, that I need to replace the lower grits more frequently than the higher grits. Hope this helps!


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## Dendrobatez (Jan 26, 2020)

Been watching a youtube channel lately called "knife repair" this guys got a nice shop setup and does real nice work - uses a combination of sandpaper and stones to fix and polish knives.


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## ian (Jan 26, 2020)

JAMMYPANTZ said:


> To take a knife from 300 to 2500 usually takes me like 2.5 hours and sometimes more if I missed a scratch...which my wife detests haha.



Hmm, yea I don't know if I have that much patience. I have some elbow tendinitis issues, so I'd rather sacrifice loads of sandpaper than lengthen the polishing process. While metal does still come off for a long while, I feel like the cutting power of the sandpaper significantly decreases after a few minutes. Maybe what I'm noticing is just the very peaks of the grits being shaved off, and I should keep going with it, but to me it's not really worth it to eke out every last bit of polish from a piece of paper.


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## San_ (Feb 1, 2020)

SilverSwarfer said:


> Here’s a Shi.han I sanded to “near mirror.” I put about 6hrs into this, using 800-1k-1.5k-3k sandpapers of various types. I wrapped some durable disposable foodservice towels around a 1” square wooden block about 3.5” long. I found that using some Autosol and adding some 3k SIC powder made the work go faster. As I progressed grits I went perpendicular to the last, always “pulling” with pressure (sanding pressure 1 direction only). Work was spread over about 3 weeks.
> 
> Pics aren’t great. Apologies. There is a pic showing original finish.


Nice done !!


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## daveb (Feb 1, 2020)

I find it much more enjoyable and takes considerably less time to unpolish them.


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## captaincaed (Feb 2, 2020)

I can't imagine doing it without a flap wheel and compounds. 100% hand polish? There be madness there.


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## vitreous (Feb 2, 2020)

or some people it might be like gardening or picking herbs. Turn mind off, leave hands to task.


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## Nino-chan (Feb 2, 2020)

Garner Harrison said:


> I might be wrong here but with the paste stuff, that sounds like you could just whip out an orbital sander with a appropriate pad and go nuts with it


i believe you need the scratch pattern to go in one direction so an orbital (excuse my pun) "wouldn't be up to scratch"


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## inferno (Feb 2, 2020)

i polished a diy knife yesterday. its not a perfect blade since i kinda removed too much material with the angle grinder when making it.

i went shapton pro 220, glass 500, pro1k, pro2k, kit4k, glass gray 6k, pro8k, naniwa ss 12k.
also tried conticule and uchigumori on it just for fun.
from some angles it looks like a mirror but from some angles you can see all the scratches.

and yes, thats a hattori handle you see there


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## Badgertooth (Feb 3, 2020)

T85 said:


> So How many hours (average) would it take to take 270mm to a mirror polish?



I think you want to block this one out in weeks rather than hours if you are going to do it properly. There’s no short cuts as I’ve tried most of them.

Step 1.
Knock the handle off

Step 2.
Clamp your knife to a 2x4 then fix the 2x4 in a vice. This is my ratchet home setup:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BxZjA_7gpyi/?igshid=1pua8jlb55nby

Raise the blade off the 2x4 with 2 pieces of balsa wood

Step 3: 180 grit paper tang to tip without doing the scrubby scrubby that results in a type of scratch called j-hooks. You want clean horizontal lines.

Step 4 a: Cross hatch with 220. That’s right you’re going to completely bumsex your pristine 180 horizontal finish

Step 4 b: 220 tang to tip until you can’t see any leftover scratches from 4 a 

Step 5: rinse and repeat with 
320
400
600
800
1200
2000

Step 6: 5 micron diamond paste applied with hard felt or balsa

Step 7: 3 micron diamond paste as above

Step 8: 1 micron paste

Stwp 9: .5 micron paste


https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwd7S1JBGwO/?igshid=i71ywsv4fw66


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## Luftmensch (Feb 3, 2020)

Badgertooth said:


> Step 3: 180 grit paper tang to tip without doing the scrubby scrubby that results in a type of scratch called j-hooks. You want clean horizontal lines.



Out of interest... why no scrubby scrubby?

When I want a brushed finish I will aim for clean horizontal lines.... when I am working up the layers they only need to largely go in one direction. The j-hooks will eventually be erased by the next grit. Am I missing something?


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## harlock0083 (Feb 3, 2020)

Garner Harrison said:


> I might be wrong here but with the paste stuff, that sounds like you could just whip out an orbital sander with a appropriate pad and go nuts with it


 
I'd worry about heating up the blade too much on the orbital sander. If it's the last step to polish up with paste then it should be fine. I used a hand drill with buffing wheels attached before okay.


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## SeattleBen (Feb 4, 2020)

Badgertooth said:


> I think you want to block this one out in weeks rather than hours if you are going to do it properly. There’s no short cuts as I’ve tried most of them.
> 
> Step 1.
> Knock the handle off
> ...



What is your approach when or if the handle doesn't come off or is an integral bolster?


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## captaincaed (Mar 22, 2020)

Luftmensch said:


> Out of interest... why no scrubby scrubby?
> 
> When I want a brushed finish I will aim for clean horizontal lines.... when I am working up the layers they only need to largely go in one direction. The j-hooks will eventually be erased by the next grit. Am I missing something?


I've been working on a knife over the break. The J hook scratches end up being deeper than the linear scratches, so it takes longer to remove them when you go up in grit


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## gregfisk (Mar 22, 2020)

I built a machine for sanding out my knives that really speeds up the process. Instead of me moving the sandpaper back and forth on the knife the machine moves the knife back and forth and I just hold the sandpaper in place. I did it on the cheap by dissecting a treadmill.


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## captaincaed (Mar 22, 2020)

You're like the Colin Furze of the knife world


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## gregfisk (Mar 23, 2020)

Haha Cap, I had to look him up as I didn’t know him. Funny guy for sure. I do make a lot of equipment and tools of my own design. I wanted to set up an efficient working environment before I got too deep into doing this. I’ve spent more time making equipment in this new hobby than making knives, a lot more time. I have bad shoulders and hand sanding my bevels out was killing me. This machine “I have no idea what to call it” saves me hours of sanding.


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## gregfisk (Mar 23, 2020)

Hey Ben, another Seattleite here. Locked down in my house like the rest of us.


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## captaincaed (Mar 23, 2020)

Oh hey, welcome to the PNW, Pandemic NorthWest. I'd love to see a shot of your machine. I'm going nuts doing what I'm doing


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## gregfisk (Mar 24, 2020)

captaincaed said:


> Oh hey, welcome to the PNW, Pandemic NorthWest. I'd love to see a shot of your machine. I'm going nuts doing what I'm doing


I’ll take a picture of it tomorrow and then if you have any questions about it just let me know. Almost the entire machine was made from a treadmill I got for free.


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## gregfisk (Mar 24, 2020)

I’ll attempt to upload a video of my machine running but we’ll see. If I can’t get it to work I’ll post pictures. Apparently the 20second video file was too large. Here are some pictures. Calling all knife makers, what do I call this thing?


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## parbaked (Mar 24, 2020)

Upload your video to YouTube and post a link.


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## gregfisk (Mar 24, 2020)

Sorry for the duplicate picture, I hit the same one twice. You can change the length of the throw for different lengths of knives by moving the arm on the wheel either closer to center or farther out to the edge of the wheel. The parts are almost all from a treadmill. The knife table is magnetic and works great for holding down carbon steel knives. This machine saves me hours of sanding. You still need to give attention to trouble areas with the machine stopped.


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## captaincaed (Mar 24, 2020)

That's kind of terrifying. I'm impressed at the innovation. I can't wait to see it in action. And yes, gotta use YouTube


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## HSC /// Knives (Mar 24, 2020)

@gregfisk um...can I ask you to make some items for me....? 


I don't really do high polishes or high grit sanding, but I did today to make sure I still could, and reveal the hamon
This is a 1084 forged knife to 9 micron.

It took about 10 mins per side coming off the belt grinder at 320 grit.

High alloy steels like Z-wear PM, well that's another story.....
on your machine, which is very cool btw, you would be replacing the sandpaper every few minutes.

Simple carbon steels and AEB-L are pretty "easy" to polish compared to the difficult steels.


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## captaincaed (Mar 24, 2020)

10 minutes per side to bring it from 320 to polished?


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## HSC /// Knives (Mar 24, 2020)

captaincaed said:


> 10 minutes per side to bring it from 320 to polished?


to 9 micron (about 1200 grit) , yes, 
it's a small blade 6 5/8"
additional time for the etching and polishing with simichrome or flitz


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## captaincaed (Mar 25, 2020)

Gotcha thank you. Im still learning to judge finish levels by eye and teaching myself to translate from micron to JIS grit. For some reason I thought 9 micron was finer than that. Hazards of coming from the wood world where 220 is "fine"


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## gregfisk (Mar 27, 2020)

HSC /// Knives said:


> @gregfisk um...can I ask you to make some items for me....?
> 
> 
> I don't really do high polishes or high grit sanding, but I did today to make sure I still could, and reveal the hamon
> ...


I really like your knife! I do go through the sandpaper but I can really make progress without near as much effort. I still have a lot to learn about finishing my knives but this machine really helps me. Let me know what your wanting made. I really enjoy making stuff.


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## inferno (Mar 29, 2020)

if you like making machines try to make one for these
https://www.knivesandtools.com/en/ct/naniwa-round-sharpening-stones.htm


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## Razor (Apr 2, 2020)

nutmeg said:


> Mirror on honyaki is hardcore.
> If I had to do the job, I would do it only with buffer wheel and try to keep in mind that scratches- even large are not such a big problem.


A buffing wheel will give the metal a soft look, and if you are not careful you can overheat the metal. It polishes without actually flattening the surface. That is why sword polishers only use stones.


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## nutmeg (Apr 3, 2020)

Razor said:


> A buffing wheel will give the metal a soft look, and if you are not careful you can overheat the metal. It polishes without actually flattening the surface... That is why sword polishers only use stones.


mirror with stones is cool but on such a large and hard surface. Not sure many would take the time to do it.


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## Forty Ounce (Apr 3, 2020)

kayman67 said:


> 100% doable, but at some point you will get into polishing paste territory and that means some kind of high rpm to make it efficient. It can be done by hand, but takes days. No one can actually do this 8 hours straight.


I do


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## Forty Ounce (Apr 3, 2020)

My method for mirror polishing is sanding up to 2500 grit with sandpaper, alternating directions with each grit.. then I start with diamonds.. 6m 3m 1m. It usually takes about 6-8hrs per side, granted everything goes according the plan....
Here's a video of some recent work.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9CY3YLnZqq/?igshid=w4kzdan45js3
Before the extra work.. I made sure to have light reflections to show that mirrored is still scratchy, no matter what.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B0PJhiFHmc7/?igshid=1pzwkmtd31r7p


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## Forty Ounce (Apr 3, 2020)

gregfisk said:


> View attachment 74844
> View attachment 74845
> View attachment 74846
> View attachment 74844
> ...


I've seen people build these for sanding before.. they weren't able to get a patent because it's essentially the same as a motorized sex toy...


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## kayman67 (Apr 3, 2020)

Heh. Don't know much about toys.

Unfortunately, I'm either too old or too old to do this for 8 hours straight. But within a few days it's done.


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## gregfisk (Apr 3, 2020)

Forty Ounce said:


> I've seen people build these for sanding before.. they weren't able to get a patent because it's essentially the same as a motorized sex toy...


Wow, I have never seen one of these machines before. I got the idea from something else that I saw that had a different purpose. When I first thought of it I went on YouTube but couldn’t find anything and I looked several times. If you remember where you saw one let me know. I have no intention of trying to get a patent, I posted here because I thought someone else might like to make one. You made me laugh regarding the sex toy, I actually have seen what you’re talking about. Maybe that’s where I got the idea .


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## Forty Ounce (Apr 3, 2020)

gregfisk said:


> Wow, I have never seen one of these machines before. I got the idea from something else that I saw that had a different purpose. When I first thought of it I went on YouTube but couldn’t find anything and I looked several times. If you remember where you saw one let me know. I have no intention of trying to get a patent, I posted here because I thought someone else might like to make one. You made me laugh regarding the sex toy, I actually have seen what you’re talking about. Maybe that’s where I got the idea .


I'm glad you saw the humour.. I know it was a knifemaker in Australia.. if I remember who it was, I'll post it here


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