polishing carbon Steel with wire brush and drill?

[80sskater]

I've seen people restore old knives and axes this way of course I would use some type of sandpaper afterwards but with an initial pass do you think I could polish with it?

 

[Bill DeShivs]

No.

 

[eKretz]

A wire wheel can shine up crusty old steel if you have a powerful bench grinder and pretty high speed - and you'll need to push pretty hard into the wheel. However I'd only use one to remove loose flaking rust etc. From there you're better off just using a belt sander or similar.

I'd have to concur with Bill that trying to do this with a small diameter wheel on a hand drill would probably be utterly hopeless though.

 

[PeterS84]

I've used an angle grinder with a wire cup brush to clean scale off of forged steel when I was doing blacksmithing and that worked fine. I think using a small brush and a drill would be very unproductive due to size and power (or lack of both, really). You're better off trying something else.