Looking to mirror polish blades Loveless style... Any advice?

No, sorry! I read about the black magic on cork belts years ago and it gives a nice high polish satin finish. I use it often for my flat grinds, but as a final step usually, not intermediate going to a buffed satin finish.

I'm hoping some of the other guys have more experience with other compounds than I do!
 
Taz said:
No, sorry! I read about the black magic on cork belts years ago and it gives a nice high polish satin finish. I use it often for my flat grinds, but as a final step usually, not intermediate going to a buffed satin finish.

I'm hoping some of the other guys have more experience with other compounds than I do!
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I've asked Wynn Stitt, a knifemaker out of North Bay, Ontario to take a look at this discussion. Wynn gets a good mirror finish on his own work, and sells the buffing supplies that RJ Wilson used to sell (he was a friend of RJs and I think he bought the business when RJ died). I know Wynn's first step after 400x ground finish is Black Magic on a hard airway buff (which I wouldn't prefer), so he must have a decent next step for clearing the black magic finish.
 
Taz said:
No, sorry! I read about the black magic on cork belts years ago and it gives a nice high polish satin finish. I use it often for my flat grinds, but as a final step usually, not intermediate going to a buffed satin finish.

I'm hoping some of the other guys have more experience with other compounds than I do!
Click to expand...

Taz said:
No, sorry! I read about the black magic on cork belts years ago and it gives a nice high polish satin finish. I use it often for my flat grinds, but as a final step usually, not intermediate going to a buffed satin finish.

I'm hoping some of the other guys have more experience with other compounds than I do!
Click to expand...

I use a cork belt with Gesswein Greystar as an intermediate step after 400 grit before I start hand sanding!

AdamSmith said:
I've asked Wynn Stitt, a knifemaker out of North Bay, Ontario to take a look at this discussion. Wynn gets a good mirror finish on his own work, and sells the buffing supplies that RJ Wilson used to sell (he was a friend of RJs and I think he bought the business when RJ died). I know Wynn's first step after 400x ground finish is Black Magic on a hard airway buff (which I wouldn't prefer), so he must have a decent next step for clearing the black magic finish.
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He must be using the black magic on the airway buff similarly to how I use the cork belt
 
I'm not much of a mirror polish guy nor I'm knowledgeable about buffers.

However, I'd follow Tre Hill ( 3 3rdhillcustoms ) on Instagram and follow his methods.
He uses a combination of polishing stones glued to an oscillating multi tool and buffers and can get a true mirror in an hour or so. If you search through his Instagram he has various videos working with the method.
 
Today after work I'll be using waterstones (Shapton Pro 1k, King 6k) to polish my kiridashi as another experiment, and then buff again using the same methods, so as to determine whether the marks are in fact caused by what I now know is called sleeking... Here in North Carolina we're expected to have an ice storm but I'm hoping it'll end up being mild enough that we don't lose power and I can spend my weekend at home working on my polishing...

I also plan to make a sanding stick out of micarta in a semi-circle shape, convex on one side for hollow grinds and flat on the other for flat and convex grinds, with radiused edges to get in the plunge lines. I think I'll take a scrap piece of wood or micarta and cut a good dip into it with my 12" contact wheel, use that as a guide to trace out the radius onto the piece of micarta I'll make the sanding stick out of, and perhaps even use the concave piece to lap the convex piece to the exact shape and get rid of any irregularities. I may also make a piece with a smaller radius to directly attack any stubborn scratches.
 
AdamSmith said:
I've asked Wynn Stitt, a knifemaker out of North Bay, Ontario to take a look at this discussion. Wynn gets a good mirror finish on his own work, and sells the buffing supplies that RJ Wilson used to sell (he was a friend of RJs and I think he bought the business when RJ died). I know Wynn's first step after 400x ground finish is Black Magic on a hard airway buff (which I wouldn't prefer), so he must have a decent next step for clearing the black magic finish.
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Thanks Adam the system I use was taught to me by RW Wilson from Weirton wva. He passed coming up to 6 years now could he ever polish a knife great and fast. And he only would but he grind to 400 grit. He would grind with oil tfl 50 on his belts 150 320 and 400 and they would be older belts aswell. Then polishing 5 different wheels starting with 3600 rpm black on a combat 9 inch wheel. Then move on to 1800 rpm radial stitched wheel using black then to another radial stitched wheel but soft then the 1st not as many stitches with green compound. The number 4 wheel is 1800 rpm with white compound ona loose cotton wheel and the last is a air way wheel with pink at 1800 rpm. Takes approximately 8 minutes to polish the whole average size knife it does work if you need more information u can message me and I will answer more questions. I have taken over RW buffing supply business and do carry all the buffing wheels and compound hope it helps
 
AdamSmith said:
I've asked Wynn Stitt, a knifemaker out of North Bay, Ontario to take a look at this discussion. Wynn gets a good mirror finish on his own work, and sells the buffing supplies that RJ Wilson used to sell (he was a friend of RJs and I think he bought the business when RJ died). I know Wynn's first step after 400x ground finish is Black Magic on a hard airway buff (which I wouldn't prefer), so he must have a decent next step for clearing the black magic finish.
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SwissHeritageCo said:
This is madness.
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I'll just say that, contrary to what a number have written, a mirror finish is a highly practical finish for working knives, and actually pretty easy to achieve. I've got experience with my own mirror finished knives with decades of hard use to back up this statement.

Check out Larrin's work on the difference in stain resistance of different finishes. You are giving up significant stain resistance by going to satin finish.

With regards to Wynn's post, his method is completely different from mine, but the fact that he and RW are/were working with worn belts is quite important. Before the advent of micron graded belts back in the early 80s my final fine grind belt was a lubricated worn 600x (and I used the same one for over a year at a time). The scratches from a lubricated worn belt are way more shallow than those from a fresh belt (like by a factor of 10, I would guess).

Make the knives you like, the way you wish (we should all do that). Mirror finishing a knife is not madness. (or maybe you were talking about a particular post, or method, in which case, whatever.)
 
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And for a bit more context on methods: Wynn's knives are 440C. My traditional methods evolved around 154-CM (this is long before cpm steels). My current methods are largely shaped by the use of hard medium and high vanadium steels : cpm-10V, magnacut, s90v, cpm-m4. Mirror finishing the last cpm-10v knife took five minutes for both compounds (my own diamond compounds). However, these days I'm using the new methods for low carbide steels as well.
 
I don't know how much I'll get done this weekend with the "winter storm" but I'm gonna try to mirror finish a full flat grind next, and likely switch to my stitched cotton buffs to try. I feel confident that I'm getting very close to figuring this out... I also had an idea about using Mother's mag wheel polish as a final step.
 
RW Wilson was a madman at the buffer. He scared me, and I am nor scared of a buffer.
He could also grind the bevels on a 10" knife in six passes.
I miss him. We had great talks and such at the knife show in Harrisonburg. One of the nicest and most sharing guys you could ever meet. I also liked his taste in hats and buckskins
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Last night I made another attempt at mirror polishing, and while it isn't perfect, I think I can roll with it while working on improving it further!

I made a sanding stick by grinding into a scrap piece of 2x4 with my 12" wheel to get the radius, then I traced it onto a scrap piece of micarta, profiled it to shape and then lapped it to the exact shape using the 2x4 and sandpaper. I used this hard backing to sand out the scratches from my 800 grit cork belt with surprising speed, then proceeded to 1500 and 2000.

This time I used 6" stitched cotton buffs, which I drilled out to fit my 5/8" arbor. I used Black Magic and green chrome again, and I also changed my technique and took a little more time on the buffer. I found that the black compound was more than capable of removing the 2000 grit scratches, and that the green chrome was adequate for polishing. It seems that the majority of my issue was a matter of technique and a lack of patience.

There are still some blemishes but they're insignificant compared to before and even under 120x magnification things are looking decent.

I also used Mother's mag wheel polish as a finishing step which helped the clarity of the polish marginally.

Will post pictures when I have more time
 
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