Non reflective finish to shiny finish??

B

BLM4L

Joined
Jan 19, 2006
Messages
194
I really need advice. My problem is I love a shiny finish. So far, I have found only one in production knife that is black and has what I think of as "Gloss black" finish.
Which of the following might make a dull, flat black finish a bit more shiney:

1] Polish blade with 4000 grit sand paper

2] Polish blade with Flitz polish, followed with Flitz "Wax".

3] Shine with either liquid black shoe polish.

4] Shine with silicone pad (like the ones to shine leather belts, shoes).

5] NONE of the above, but something else might work.

6] Just forget it because it can't be done (my least favorite answer).

Thanks everyone. This has me stumped.
 
You might try clear nail polish. Sand paper of any grit seems like a bad idea unless you want to get rid of the black entirely. Some kind of wax might work. . . I've never used Flitz or any other wax on any of my knives, so I don't really know for sure, but it sounds like one of the better ideas. Shoe polish I would think would be messy and rub off on anything you cut, but if you're doing it for a display piece, then it might be worth experimenting with. . . I don't think it would have the effect you want though, and I personally wouldn't want to try it, display piece or otherwise. If you want to spend a bit of time on it, maybe you could remove the flat black finish and apply a new finish of your choice. I'm not sure what would be a good choice for that though. Good luck!
 
What kind of coating is on it now ? That will likely determine whether or not it'll take a polish. Do you have access to a bench grinder ?
A simple answer is to use cloth wheels and successive grades of metal polish, and a final hand polish. That's how I do mine, anyway. It takes me about an hour to take an 18" machete from rough to about 2000grit, which is reflective but not mirrored. After that I'd suggest a buffer and cut-polish. Doing it all by hand would take forever. I would caution against the shoe polish, it'll just sit on the surface and get rubbed away by the sheath. Either way, normal use would probably trash any polish you put on the surface.

The most expedient thing might be a few coats of clear gloss lacquer (spray) and just touch it up as part of your sharpening/maintenance routine. I usually spray steel blades so they don't rust while in storage/shipping.

On wooden sheaths, I've used 'surfboard resin' which is a clear vinylester fiberglassing resin. With good surface prep and polishing, you could probably get a pretty decent shine on your project. As I say though, it really depends on what the blade is coated/treated with.

Hopefully that helps. I'll be following this with interest...
 
Thanks Bill, I should have been more concise but I didn't want the post to be too long.

That's why I was asking about the composition of the coating. I assume he's going for a hematite-like finish. If it's a high-build coating (eg. epoxy rather than solvent based) then it should be thick enough to 'level out' the surface imperfections by polishing and buff it to a shine. On the other end of the spectrum, if it's blued then you can polish the finish right off before you get a shine. Either way, I doubt you'd get a mirrored black blade like when you polish an untreated blade. I did that using a hard rhino-liner type product but I wasn't really happy with it.
 
Remember, if you are going to hot blue a blade to jet black "finish in = finish out" is true to a great extent. If you could disassemble the knife scrape all the junk off it and put a mirror polish on it then go to a gun store and have it hot blued, tell them you want it really dark or black, they will know what to do (or you could do it yourself if your really interested).
After you get it back you could then go and polish it with some 2-3 micron diamond buffing compound to get that glass smooth surface back.
I have seen it done and the result (with careful planning and even more careful execution) is a blade that looks like it's made of black glass, very beautiful and has depth to the shine.
 
Any black finish on steel will wear very quickly. If the blade is stainless, it can not be sucessfully blued.
 
hmm isnt there some black gloss paint or perhaps a lacquer finish that would be suitable?
 
What about a light wet sanding (to get an even, paintable finish) in 1500 or greater grit and then clear coating, like you would on a car?
 
Where dose he say that the blade is stainless? I still say hot blue with salts, it gives a really nice effect and the oxide coting is relatively durable.
 
Forgive me for just jumping in here without checking the rest of the posts, but I thought I could give you a suggestion.

You can find a black touch up paint can at an autoparts store. The can is about as big as a pen and it has a small brush. If you try sanding the black lightly with four hundred or so and wipe it clean with a light solvent, then apply the touch up, the paint shoud stick pretty well. You can then sand the touch up with the finest paper you can find. Four thousand, or eight thousand, or whatever they have to gloss the paint. I've used the touch up on my car, and with the right sand paper, it will gloss nicely.

The finish will be somewhat durable, but will scratch a bit, however the paint is so easy to use and sand glossy, you can just reapply. It dries quickly, and sands glossy with very little effort.

And it's just my geuss that the paint will stick very well to the oxide finish, making it pretty hard to scratch off.
 
I appreciate everyone's input. I have pretty much decided to just stick with as close as I can get to fairly reflective, and with Flitz Gux Wax (Carnauba base) on it. Ok if I post a couple of pics of what I mean? I have found two inexpensive knives that I am Very happy with for both appearance and for sturdiness. Both are CRKTs with a fairly reflective black finish, which now has the glossy look I like once a couple coats of "wax", not polish, but just Flitz gun wax has been applied? If so, I post the pics here.
For what it's worth --- after lots of comparison shopping, in the well under a $100.00 price range for stout folders I have become a pretty big fan of Kershaw and CRKT in the hefty folder category.
 
You could try stripping the coating and researching a high gloss black metal coating, but with any use it will dull out.
 
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