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Easiest Steels to Mirror Polish?

M

Mialum

Joined
Jun 18, 2022
Messages
33
Polishing a blade or an edge to a mirror polish has, obviously, been a relatively common practice throughout the recent history of knives and swords. I can see why, 'cause I personally LOVE a good mirror-polished blade.
So out of curiosity, in your experience, which steels have been the easiest to polish to a mirror finish, and which have been the hardest?

(forgive me if this isn't the right section for this thread; move it as necessary.)
 
From the metallurgist point of view the more alloys aka carbide building alloys there are the harder it is.
First because these steels are more wear resistant and therefore harder to grind/polish, too.
Second and this condiders how polished you want it, these carbides tend to break free at one point in the process and will scratch your surface.
If you want mirror polishing up to one micron diamond compound this is to take into account.

Easiest knife steels to polish are those lower alloyed than your eutektik point.
Homogenious matrix.
 
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