How to polish bolsters and gaurds???

cbr900son

cbr900son

Joined
Mar 3, 2011
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K Ive ben able to get them to decent polish but some people I see get the bolsters and gaurds to a mirror polish. Read a few threads and see so many different ways. Wondering what works best for yall. Hand sand every thing to 2000? Grinder to 400 then hand sanded? Or whatever you do let me know. Im curious as Im not completely happy with my bolster and gaurd polishing right now.
 
You should check out the knifemakers shop talk forum, lots of good info over there. That being said, i take mine to 600 grit then buff with matchless green chrome, yellow treated buffs from pops knife supplies. I use a 1700 rpm buffer with the big 10" wheels. One thing I can say about using 416 stainless is to use light pressure on it as much as possible. Unless you are going to heat treat 416 it tends to pit kinda easily, so light pressure seems to be the way to go.
 
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I have seen some go up to 4000 grit and then use green then pink no scratch and really polishes.
 
I go to 1200 grit, then green rouge on a sisal wheel, and then pink no-scratch compound on a soft wheel at 1750 rpm and very light pressure. Works out well for me.
 
I notice you've posted this type question here several times.
You would most likely get much more feed-back posting these over on the knifemaker's forum.
 
Please post this kind of question in Shop Talk, where I've moved it.
Customs & Handmade is for discussions of knives already made.
 
What others have said is right on. I machine sand to 400 then hand sand to 600 or 1500, which is the highest grit paper I usually have. Then take to the buffer with tripoli compound. I don't put too much pressure on it but I buff until I get a mirror polish. If there are any scratches, which will be very obvious, I go back to hand sanding until they come out and take it back to the buffer. After the tripoli I usually take it to green compound to give it more shine.
 
I machine finish to 400 with J-flex, hand sand up to 600, then buff with a green cut-and-color compound. That usually suffices nicely on most fitting metals. For nickel silver sometimes green chrome or pink scratchless is a good final step.
 
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