Hand sanded finish

[Jason Fry]

A good hand sanding job starts with a clean grind off the grinder. This one I used a sharp 120 ceramic then a sharp 220 AO. Then I hand sanded at 400 crosswise, then 600 lengthwise with WD40 and Rhynowet. Final passes were dry at 600.

 

[KCGGBC]

Clean!

 

[Hengelo_77]

yes, clean!

 

[bmilleker]

What is your technique for not blurring the swedge line?

 

[Justin Schmidt]

What is your technique for not blurring the swedge line?

Nick talked about this in his 2nd (I think) hand sanding video. He makes a big that will allow the knife to rotate so the swedge is parallel to the floor. Then uses a hard backing

 

[Jason Fry]

To me, not blurring lines is a matter of using hard backing and paying attention to your angles. For one, I finished the entire blade to a dirty 400 (no grinder marks, but no attention to fish hooks, etc) BEFORE I ground the swedge. Then I used a hard, wide bar to do the swedge polishing, so that it was harder to get the angles wrong. Nick is the master of this! I didn't build a jig, etc. to make getting the angles right easier. I just paid close attention to the angles. Same on the plunge. I use the widest bar I have to polish the ricasso, so that there's little to no chance of rounding the corner of the plunge or the sharp corners where the guard will hit the ricasso.