Please explain the mirror polish stone wash on Slysz Bowie

kidcongo

kidcongo

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Jan 12, 2013
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I have a Slysz Bowie and like it a lot. As with any Taichung spydies the F&F is excellent. The thing I find most fascinating, that I can't quite wrap my brain around, is the finish on the blade. How is this achieved? I swear if I hold the blade at an obtuse angle to the light, the blade is perfectly smooth, no texture, and reflects like a mirror. Yet, at right-angles to the light, it has a gorgeous, sparkley, deep stone wash.

It boggles my (tiny) mind. Is the blade coated with a clearcoat? Transparent DLC after stonewashing? Is it a trade secret?

If anyone has the answer I'd love to know. It's really a fantastic finish and great for its beauty and functionality.
 
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I've never seen one in the wild but after reading your post I went and looked at pics. You can clearly see that it looks mirrored from certain angles and stonewashed from others. Very cool.
 
I own more than two Slysz/Spyderco collabs and I think they polish the blade to a near mirror polish and then follow up with a tumbling of fine medium(small ceramic beads) for a lengthy amount of time, which explains the rounding of the edges, not 100%sure though, there's definitely people around here with the correct answer.


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The mystery remains! I was just comparing the stonewash on a Sebenza to the Bowie. I can see and feel the texture on the Sebenza, but the Bowie feels and appears smooth, as if it wasn't stone washed, yet it is! I haven't seen the finish on the Slysz on any other knife 1st hand (I am guessing it is maybe also on the techno?).

Maybe this is only intriguing to me, but if anyone knows anything about it, I am all ears.
 
kidcongo said:
The mystery remains! I was just comparing the stonewash on a Sebenza to the Bowie. I can see and feel the texture on the Sebenza, but the Bowie feels and appears smooth, as if it wasn't stone washed, yet it is! I haven't seen the finish on the Slysz on any other knife 1st hand (I am guessing it is maybe also on the techno?).

Maybe this is only intriguing to me, but if anyone knows anything about it, I am all ears.
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That's just the nature of a stonewash with fine media, or lightly abrasive media. It is scratching the steel, but also burnishing the steel at the same time which makes it take somewhat of a polish.

I stonewash blades from time to time, and depending on the shape/composition of the media you can get a very dull and heavy stonewash - or a light and sparkly stonewash that is almost polished.

Some people also tumble knives in a media like corn cob or walnut shells with polishing compound after the initial stonewash. That treatment leaves a very high sheen and it may be something that spyderco is doing, but that's just conjecture.
 
AwayFromMySpydieHole said:
That's just the nature of a stonewash with fine media, or lightly abrasive media. It is scratching the steel, but also burnishing the steel at the same time which makes it take somewhat of a polish.

I stonewash blades from time to time, and depending on the shape/composition of the media you can get a very dull and heavy stonewash - or a light and sparkly stonewash that is almost polished.

Some people also tumble knives in a media like corn cob or walnut shells with polishing compound after the initial stonewash. That treatment leaves a very high sheen and it may be something that spyderco is doing, but that's just conjecture.
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Thanks for your reply!
 
I'm glad someone asked this question, because I've always wondered!

I don't think it's a clear-coat because I've taken Simichrome polish to the blade, and made it even shinier. We need Sal to explain this wizardry.

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Slauterhause said:
I'm glad someone asked this question, because I've always wondered!

I don't think it's a clear-coat because I've taken Simichrome polish to the blade, and made it even shinier. We need Sal to explain this wizardry.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
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That's interesting. The reason I thought it might be clear-coated is the stone wash seems more 3D than others I have. The stonewash on a CRK appears to sit on the surface. The Slysz Bowie blade finish appears to be (or gives the illusion of being) under the surface. It is quite a bit different than the stone wash on the Southard Flipper (also Taichung), so I think it is intentional, not just the way they do it in Taiwan. I also imagine corrosion resistance would be better over a standard stone wash, but XHP is pretty good for corrosion to start with.
 
I don't know how they do it either. I have an older saber grind 154CM Manix 2 and it has the same finish. From photos I believe the Manix 2 LW Maxamet has a similar finish.
 
Im pretty sure its just that the blades are finished to a fine satin and then stonewashed with a very fine media. The older Survive! Knives fixed blades also had this finish. I think it looks amazing and with more companies would do it. My Sebenza 25 was the same way.
 
I don't know much about applying finishes, but could it be stonewashed then lightly polished so the deeper scratches of the stone wash stay but the rest gets the polish? Could account for the "depth" of the stonewash?

Or perhaps a mixed media stonewash? Very fine media with a few bigger media thrown in?
 
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