Another finishing question: To polish or not to polish?

[weo]

Hello all. I hope this holiday season finds everyone well.

Does everyone polish their handles on kitchen knives to the point where there's a mirror finish and no scratches visible on the pins or are 1000g scratches acceptable?

So far, I've hand sanded my handles to 5000g, then used my dremel to buff to a mirror finish, but that's a lot more time than going to 1000g and then buff which is where I am on my current project.

Thanks

as always
peace and love
billyO

 

[Joshua Fisher]

Hello Billy, I can’t comment on aesthetics because I beleive to some degree everyone has a different preference but from a practical stand point the finer you sand the more the pores of the wood will be closed off which will make the handle more resistant to water, now the finish you use also has an effect on that, a straight oil like boiled linseed oil or pure Tung oil will add more resistance to water and drying out and i find personally with those oils the finer I sand the better I think it looks, on the flip side depending on the handle ergonomics and how one holds the knife the finer you sand the more slick or slippery the handle becomes. I like lower grit finish on utility handles and higher grit on show handles if that makes sense just due to how much “grip” the handle has. Just my opinion, I don’t think you can go wrong either way a clean 1000 grit can be just as nice as a clean 5000 depending on how you want it to look and feel. Have a great holiday

 

[Rhinoknives1]

I take my handles to 600grit & back to 400g for a slightly grippy feel. Then buff with Fabulister polish.. in my experience, yes, the higher the sanding the greater the shine, I rather have some grip!

 

[joedhiggins]

Depends on the handle material, but because I don't use steel in my handles as a general rule, I don't think there is much value to polishing past about 1k. As background I do a lot of wood turning, and also make a number of intricate DE razor handles and the like on the lathe. I generally mirror polish these.

My general finishing technique on these is to bring them to 600 with a random swirl pattern then transition to a wax based buffing compound that takes them into the 1200-15oo range. From there I buff on a wheel for the non ferrous metals/woods or use a fine grit plastic polish on the plastics/metals.

Applying htis to knife handles, I generally sand the knife handle to somewhere between 600 and 1500 (most of my kitchen knife handles are Wa style, so no pins) depending on the wood species. Once again, depending on the material, I may use some finish at this point (mostly for softer, less oily woods). Then I use some sort of abrasive loaded wheels to bring to final finish.

Again depending on the wood, I may leave a handle with pins at the low grit as well, and use a series of progressive compounds to bring the brass to mirror finish. Or just leave a conistant brushed pattern on them.

I have found that some of the more aggressive polishing compounds work just fine to get past the 1k range one tight grained (and dark colored) woods. I recently made a marking gauge out of hard maple and paduk. I sanded to 400 prior to transitioning to polishing compounds. There are no visible scratches on the piece.

For some reason that I haven't figured out, I have seen a number of guys go to very high grits on knife handle woods. In most cases, especially with unstabilized woods, the wood won't progress past something between 400-1500 depending on hardness and grain tightness. Those higher grits tend to be more useful for mirror polishing an existing finish.