Orange peel and fog, oh my!

T

TroyO

Joined
Mar 20, 2001
Messages
71
I am in the blade polishing stage of my first crack at this whole knife thing, and am having a few problems.

I sanded from 800/1000/1500/2000/2500 and went to the buffer from there. I was using "Dico SCR" stainless compund on an 8" spiral sewn wheel. It's what I have been using on my armour, and it works OK there. (Home Depot stuff, not a "Proffesional" supplier.)

I ended up with an orange peely kind of finish toward the tip of the blade, and it's also a bit hazy all over.

Is there another step I am missing? Maybe I should be hitting it with Emery compund first?

My experience with this kind of thing is non-hardened stainless, but since this is hardened and not stainless (1095) I thought maybe there is another step?

It doesn't look terrible, but it's not the flawless mirror finish I was hoping for.

I have other compounds, Zam, and White diamond, and a few courser greaseless compunds. Would something else be better, or do I need to go back and resand?

Any help appreciated. :-)
 
I've seen orange peel in bad batches of stainless before, but not anything else, so I'm of no help on that.

But for the cloudiness a loose wheel with pink rouge will almost always work.

I don't do mirror finishes too often anymore, but as far as the buffing end of your problem...I start on a spiral sewn wheel with green/chrome rouge, and that gets a mirror...it's then all cleaned and deepened with the loose wheel and the pink rouge.

I run the sewn wheel on my baldor running at 1800 rpm, I run the loose wheel on my Burr King turned up to about 55-70% (and yes I know that's dangerous...but it works best for me).

Let us know how it turns out!
biggrin.gif

Nick
 
There was a discussion on the orange peel effect a year or so ago. Check the archives.

As Nick said, green, then pink, is the usual way to buff.

In your case I suspect the problem is more the steel than your finishing technique.

Hope this helps.
 
Orange peel effect is common in high carbon, high chromium tool steels. It is the matrix of chromium carbides dispersed throughout the martinsic structure and is accepted on steels such as D2.

Since you are working with a carbon steel, this is unusual. And if the patterning is toward the tip, you might suspect either uneven tempering, heat treat, or differences within the tool steel itself. (yes, it happens)

You can tell a lot about polishing effectiveness from looking at it through a magnifier. Are there streaks or waves in the finish that follow the lines of the buffer? This would suggest an improper finishing compound.

Do not finish carbon steels with stainless compounds. They are a mixture of grits, sometimes as low as 400, with green chromium oxide. They are very aggressive, and tend to "dig out" the structure's softer components.

The best polish for carbon steels is "555" by Brownells. It's white and clean, and doesn't rake through the crystal structure, leaving fog and marks. Use a medium stitch cotton buff, not a hard stitched buff. You'll get a clear, mirror like finish.


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Read, Study, Learn, Grow
-DO-
Jay
www.gilanet.com/JayFisher/index.htm
 
Thanks, everyone! It sounds like it's back to the sanding blocks to fix what is there now, then re-evaluate my buffing procedure.

I think I have a white rouge "For ferrous metals" that may work better. The SCR stuff was working on stainless, and I didn't realize there would be that much difference between the results on steels in general. Another lesson learned. ;-P

I think since I will have to go back and sand anyway I may try heat treating again, and go the edge-quench method rather than the whole blade quench and back off the temper of the spine. That may have contributed to the orange peel if uneven heat treating could be a cause.
 
I ended up using "Zam" from Jantz supply. It is a pale green colorored compund, I think it's primary use is for gold/precious stones but it worked beautifully on the 1095. Except for a few sanding marks (Grrr!) it has a real nice mirror polish.
 
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