polishing pins

M

meteogeek

Joined
Jan 18, 1999
Messages
57
Well, I just completed a kit knife for a friend and ran into a perplexing problem of polishing the corby type rivets that I used to afix the walnut handle slabs. I polished the brass guard and naturally wanted to polish the rivets. However, my experience with relatively porous wood is that the white rouge that I use to polish brass gets into the little "holes" and creates quite a mess. My solution was to apply a strip of masking tape over the rivet and use an Exacto (tm) knife to carefully cut out a hole in the tape to expose just the rivet. Then I touch the rivet with the buffing wheel. Of course, this is not the best method I found since you can see a "halo" of unpolished brass on the periphery of the rivet and some of the rouge still gets on the wood immediately surrounding the pin due to the action of the wheel peeling the tape. How do others on the forum get a good pin/rivet polish without making a mess of the wood handle slabs?

Thanks in advance, >> DeWayne <<
 
One strategy that I might use is to first very fine sand (down to 1200-2000 grit) the wood and pins together. Then finish the wood with an oil finish, which when it gets wiped off during each coat leaves the pins uncoated. After you have applied and smoothed the last coat of oil and let it harden good, the wood will be finished with all the pores closed. A quick touch of the pins to the buffer will polish the pins without getting into the wood.

Personally, I think you will find that the 1200-2000 grit finish looks pretty polished all by itself and let it go at that. If you apply that same finish to the guard, it will look like you planned it that way.

--Ooops, there I gave away a little knifemaker's secret.
smile.gif


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Jerry Hossom
www.hossom.com
 
Super glue does the trick nicely.Or you can use stabilized woods....Just my opinion,Bruce

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The Soul of the Knife begins in the FIRE !!!! Akti # A000223
 
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