How do I mirror polish a brushed stainless blade?

[Ferahgo]

Its all in the title

 

[amg137]

Use metal polish, stropping compound, or some other very fine abrasive material. Apply to a soft cloth (ideally microfiber) and rub for a long time, occasionally stopping to swap out the cloth/abrasives as necessary. I've only done it once, it took over an hour for a small blade. Not worth it to me to try again. There may be better ways out there.

 

[evanPGH]

I would progressively work up through the grit range until its polished.

 

[skippy75]

Or take it to a metal polisher/chrome plater. They will buff it to a polish really fast for a small cost.

 

[nightman]

http://www.sears.com/ryobi-7-piece-metal-buffing-kit/p-SPM11229162830?prdNo=19&blockNo=19&blockType=G19

Use the white rouge for stainless. Good luck.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

Its all in the title

Well, maybe 'almost all'. Depending on which stainless(?) you're referring to, some methods may work better than others. Stainless like 440A polishes very easily, but something like D2 ('almost' stainless, anyway) or S30V will take much more work, with the right abrasives and compounds.

Doing it by hand with unpowered tools could be very slow (maybe taking forever), if just using metal polish or compound. By hand, the most-often recommended method is using wet/dry sandpaper in a tight progression of grits. Most factory 'satin' finishes might emulate something in the 320-800 grit range; starting with sandpaper at a similar grit, and working up through a tight sequence of higher grits, through at least 2000 or higher, then polishing with compound or pastes, will likely do the better job. If the 'stainless' is a very high-wear steel (especially with high vanadium carbide content) like S30V, finishing the finer grits with diamond abrasives will work much, much better, down to at least 3µ compound or finer.


David

 

[ryxlyx]

I'll flatsand to 3000, it'll pass as a "near polish". The extra time spent polishing beyond that is not worth it to me, "been there/done that".

As is mentioned above tho it's important to take the sanding as far as you can before starting polishing-- the diff between polishing a 1000-grit surface for instance compared to even a 2500-grit surface is HUGE.

 

[The Aflac Duck]

In my process I use wet/dry sandpaper in this order: 100, 230, 320, 800, 1000, 1500, 2000, and 2500.

IMO starting with 100 grit will get you a more even polish since it will remove any deep scratches.

Once I get to 320, I spray water on the sandpaper to aid in sanding.

After 2500, I use a polishing wheel on my dremel with flitz to make it shine. The dremel is the key to getting a mirror polish fast and easily.