CAN’T GET A DANG MIRROR EDGE!

Jordan1010 said:
Are there any other tips or solutions. Maybe spend a more time on it?
Click to expand...
You could try and spend more time on it I suppose. Are you cleaning the blade and the stones before each try? It is possible that there are small contaminates falling off of the lower grit diamond and then being ground into the edge with the 600 grit. Its curious that the deepest scratches are coming from the 600 and not the 320. If thats not a problem either spending more time on it OR getting another stone that would stand in for it. It would require significant investment on your part to get the gritomatic stone holder for the system and getting new stones in different grit ranges. Depends on how important that mirror polish is to you.
 
Jordan1010 said:
After a week of testing the x method I believe the scratches are coming from the 600 grit
Click to expand...
I can easily believe that. That's the reason why I don´t use diamond plates for sharpening anymore. However, I use diamond plates all the time to flatten my whetstones. Maybe you could replace that diamond plate with a suitable coarse ceramic stone and see what happens.
 
btw when i buy a new production knife, typically the edge is super sharp (I'm always impressed because tbh oftentimes I can't reach factory sharpness thru my freehanding skills lol) while the bevel has a rough-looking finish, with visible grind lines. also think of Stanley utility blades, for example: their bevel finish looks like 350grit wth??

when it's time to resharpen the new knife after a few weeks of mild use, the lowest i go is 204M. or sometimes i doht even go lower than 204F. one can grind with these ceramic stones! either dry or with oil.
these stones grind away those exfac grind lines (which are deeper than your pictured scratches!) and leave a scratch-free finish. after 204UF, the bevel looks mirror polished. no scratches.

basically i am saying... if i want scratch-free mirror polish, my method is: never use anything lower than 204M (that's around 2500grit?).

what you can do: go back to the finish as seen on your photos. then grind with 204M to get to the bottom of the scratches. then grind with 204F. then 204UF. the finish should be free of scratches by now and mirror-ish enough.

the rest is optional (paper, compound, strop)
 
Last edited:
Ok so now I have another question, for stropping what do you guys recommend? I would preferrably like it to be on Amazon. What strop do you prefer and what compounds and paste do you prefer?
 
stropping bevels to get mirror finish?? - definitely stropping on bare smooth wood with waxy compound on it (white , then blue compound). both are crazy fast cutting compounds, they're even rated like that!
 
Last edited:
Not sure if I missed it, or maybe it was never specified yet. But what steel type is being polished?

If it's any of the high-vanadium steels, like S30V, etc, with vanadium content of 3%-4% or higher, the stropping/polishing needs to be done with diamond or cbn, preferably on a hard backng like wood. With high-vanadium steels, there's really no substitute for a tight grit sequence in diamond or cbn, for refining and polishing. Any other shortcuts attempted will disappoint, in the end.

If the steel is low-alloy or at least not heavy in vanadium content, other compounds in aluminum oxide (like white, blue) can polish pretty fast. Steels like 420/440, etc, polish up easily and very fast with stick compounds like white rouge (aluminum oxide), for example.

Green compound will be very slow to polish on all but the simplest carbon steels (1095, CV, etc.). Even on those steels, it'll still be slow or incapable of removing scratches that are very deep at all.
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
Not sure if I missed it, or maybe it was never specified yet. But what steel type is being polished?

If it's any of the high-vanadium steels, like S30V, etc, with vanadium content of 3%-4% or higher, the stropping/polishing needs to be done with diamond or cbn, preferably on a hard backng like wood. With high-vanadium steels, there's really no substitute for a tight grit sequence in diamond or cbn, for refining and polishing. Any other shortcuts attempted will disappoint, in the end.

If the steel is low-alloy or at least not heavy in vanadium content, other compounds in aluminum oxide (like white, blue) can polish pretty fast. Steels like 420/440, etc, polish up easily and very fast with stick compounds like white rouge (aluminum oxide), for example.

Green compound will be very slow to polish on all but the simplest carbon steels (1095, CV, etc.). Even on those steels, it'll still be slow or incapable of removing scratches that are very deep at all.
Click to expand...
Would you recommend DMT .5 diaspray
 
Jordan1010 said:
Would you recommend DMT .5 diaspray
Click to expand...
If you're still noticing obvious scratches in the finish, I'd suggest something not so fine, assuming you're still pursuing a mirror finish.

I haven't used anything finer than DMT's 1 micron Dia-Paste. And for the most noticeable improvement on a finish that still has visible scratches, I'd at least start with 3-micron (on wood) for stropping. Assuming the scratches in the existing finish aren't coarser than DMT's EF (1200), the 3-micron compound is usually where I'd go next from there. If the scratches are still too coarse to be removed by the 3-micron diamond compound, that's a cue to go back at least to the Fine or EF diamond hones for more refinement before polishing.

Something like the 0.5 micron diamond probably shouldn't be considered at all, until AFTER an obvious mirror has come up. By itself, the 0.5 won't be able to clean up obvious scratches.
 
Jordan1010 said:
What brand compound would you recommend
Click to expand...
i am sure that any popular widely available compound will do the trick .
in the europes the by far biggest company is OSBORN with different brands like Unipol, Dialux, etc etc. (all manufactured in gemani afaik), highly recommended. and there is MERARD from France with brands like Luxor (all manufactured in Francia), also highly recommended but hard to find.

you're not in the europes? oic
 
kreisler said:
i am sure that any popular widely available compound will do the trick .
in the europes the by far biggest company is OSBORN with different brands like Unipol, Dialux, etc etc. (all manufactured in gemani afaik), highly recommended. and there is MERARD from France with brands like Luxor (all manufactured in Francia), also highly recommended but hard to find.

you're not in the europes? oic
Click to expand...
Not Europe
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
If you're still noticing obvious scratches in the finish, I'd suggest something not so fine, assuming you're still pursuing a mirror finish.

I haven't used anything finer than DMT's 1 micron Dia-Paste. And for the most noticeable improvement on a finish that still has visible scratches, I'd at least start with 3-micron (on wood) for stropping. Assuming the scratches in the existing finish aren't coarser than DMT's EF (1200), the 3-micron compound is usually where I'd go next from there. If the scratches are still too coarse to be removed by the 3-micron diamond compound, that's a cue to go back at least to the Fine or EF diamond hones for more refinement before polishing.

Something like the 0.5 micron diamond probably shouldn't be considered at all, until AFTER an obvious mirror has come up. By itself, the 0.5 won't be able to clean up obvious scratches.
Click to expand...
Would you mind leaving a link? Or maybe a picture of the item
 
kreisler said:
these stones grind away those exfac grind lines (which are deeper than your pictured scratches!) and leave a scratch-free finish. after 204UF, the bevel looks mirror polished. no scratches.

basically i am saying... if i want scratch-free mirror polish, my method is: never use anything lower than 204M (that's around 2500grit?).
Click to expand...
here is the video which i had in mind and which exemplifies one of the challenges of perfect mirror-polishing. even though the guy puts in impressive efforts over hours and hours, the best humanly possible, including the most adequate and finest stone progression to the finest expensive Japanese stones, the imperfections in the mirror polish are clearly visible, even from our screen/cam perspective. And he worked only one bevel side:

The erratic or deeper macro scratches in his bevel finish don't come from his starting stone, the aluminumoxide per se. But they originate from the metal particles (abraded metal slurry) when he was grinding on the starting stone on the metal slurry! His mistake and actually hard to prevent. The challenge that he is facing is that the bevel width is wide. For me, it is easy to get a "perfect" super polished edge on a thin bevel, say 2.0mm wide bevel, freehanded; but i'd h*te to try to get a similar "perfect" mirror-polish result on a Mora knife which comes with a wide bevel. People have done it, i could do it (i ruined my pal's son's Like New Mora bevel finish with Spyderco ceramics polishing attempts, and I was able to correct the finish with a loaded wood strop), i am just saying that the challenge increases with the wider width of the bevel.

J Jordan1010 how's your polishing work going, any updates?
 
kreisler said:
here is the video which i had in mind and which exemplifies one of the challenges of perfect mirror-polishing. even though the guy puts in impressive efforts over hours and hours, the best humanly possible, including the most adequate and finest stone progression to the finest expensive Japanese stones, the imperfections in the mirror polish are clearly visible, even from our screen/cam perspective. And he worked only one bevel side:

The erratic or deeper macro scratches in his bevel finish don't come from his starting stone, the aluminumoxide per se. But they originate from the metal particles (abraded metal slurry) when he was grinding on the starting stone on the metal slurry! His mistake and actually hard to prevent. The challenge that he is facing is that the bevel width is wide. For me, it is easy to get a "perfect" super polished edge on a thin bevel, say 2.0mm wide bevel, freehanded; but i'd h*te to try to get a similar "perfect" mirror-polish result on a Mora knife which comes with a wide bevel. People have done it, i could do it (i ruined my pal's son's Like New Mora bevel finish with Spyderco ceramics polishing attempts, and I was able to correct the finish with a loaded wood strop), i am just saying that the challenge increases with the wider width of the bevel.

J Jordan1010 how's your polishing work going, any updates?
Click to expand...
I find that the hardness of steel is a big factor here. Visible scratches appear so easily on soft steel. A laminated Mora blade is a good example. The soft outer layers get more scrathes than the harder steel in the middle. I really like to polish super hard Roselli UHC-steel. I don’t get any unwanted scratches on that UHC-steel. That cheap knife in the video most likely is really soft.
 
kreisler said:
here is the video which i had in mind and which exemplifies one of the challenges of perfect mirror-polishing. even though the guy puts in impressive efforts over hours and hours, the best humanly possible, including the most adequate and finest stone progression to the finest expensive Japanese stones, the imperfections in the mirror polish are clearly visible, even from our screen/cam perspective. And he worked only one bevel side:

The erratic or deeper macro scratches in his bevel finish don't come from his starting stone, the aluminumoxide per se. But they originate from the metal particles (abraded metal slurry) when he was grinding on the starting stone on the metal slurry! His mistake and actually hard to prevent. The challenge that he is facing is that the bevel width is wide. For me, it is easy to get a "perfect" super polished edge on a thin bevel, say 2.0mm wide bevel, freehanded; but i'd h*te to try to get a similar "perfect" mirror-polish result on a Mora knife which comes with a wide bevel. People have done it, i could do it (i ruined my pal's son's Like New Mora bevel finish with Spyderco ceramics polishing attempts, and I was able to correct the finish with a loaded wood strop), i am just saying that the challenge increases with the wider width of the bevel.

J Jordan1010 how's your polishing work going, any updates?
Click to expand...
I’m getting a bit better referring back to these tips and practicing. I’m pretty much learning through trial, error and tios
 
kreisler said:
here is the video which i had in mind and which exemplifies one of the challenges of perfect mirror-polishing. even though the guy puts in impressive efforts over hours and hours, the best humanly possible, including the most adequate and finest stone progression to the finest expensive Japanese stones, the imperfections in the mirror polish are clearly visible, even from our screen/cam perspective. And he worked only one bevel side:

The erratic or deeper macro scratches in his bevel finish don't come from his starting stone, the aluminumoxide per se. But they originate from the metal particles (abraded metal slurry) when he was grinding on the starting stone on the metal slurry! His mistake and actually hard to prevent. The challenge that he is facing is that the bevel width is wide. For me, it is easy to get a "perfect" super polished edge on a thin bevel, say 2.0mm wide bevel, freehanded; but i'd h*te to try to get a similar "perfect" mirror-polish result on a Mora knife which comes with a wide bevel. People have done it, i could do it (i ruined my pal's son's Like New Mora bevel finish with Spyderco ceramics polishing attempts, and I was able to correct the finish with a loaded wood strop), i am just saying that the challenge increases with the wider width of the bevel.

J Jordan1010 how's your polishing work going, any updates?
Click to expand...
I do realize that the scratches aren’t consistent if that makes sense. Sometimes it’s from the 1000 and sometimes from the 2000 I think you guys are right about the metal particles but I don’t know what it could be from I wipe the blade consistently but still get scratches. If you guys would like to see my latest work just ask
 
Jordan1010 said:
I do realize that the scratches aren’t consistent if that makes sense. Sometimes it’s from the 1000 and sometimes from the 2000 I think you guys are right about the metal particles but I don’t know what it could be from I wipe the blade consistently but still get scratches. If you guys would like to see my latest work just ask
Click to expand...
Do you wipe the stone down consistently, this may help. I always like to see other peoples sharpening results.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top