- Joined
- Nov 16, 2002
- Messages
- 9,948
So, I bought an Aritsugu A-series chef knife after hearing a penpal rave about it. Part of the fun is that the blade shape is awesome and the steel is of high quality (well, for high-carbide stuff....), the handle is cute, and well the manufacturer only grinds bevels onto the knife for people who buy directly. The steel is very wear-resistant and the bevel is easier to grind if you're right-handed, so I entered the ranks of other lefties with this mighty beast.
The difference is that I set the bevel for a friend's knife and later read an article on microfinishing that seemed applicable to grinding (the article mentioned using flat surfaces for polishing round objects and round surfaces for polishing flat objects and since polishing is grinding....) and have a Harbor Freight wet-grinder. The wet-grinder uses an 8" silicon carbide wheel and the set-up costs as much as DMT's extra extra coarse benchstone (but cuts faster).
So I slapped the left-hand side of the blade onto the grinder (highly assymetrical double-beveled knives are the "in" thing don't you know?) and thinned out the edge. As one may expect from a wetgrinder that cuts faster than a D8XX, the edge/relief bevel/whatevermathingysideof knife didn't look so pretty:
What eventually "worked" to pretty that up was a $5 variety pack of wet/dry sandpaper, a float glass plate, a 3M restickable gluestick, 3µ aluminum oxide polishing cloth, and some Meguiar's Hot Rims polish (with cinnamon scent!). Other than the piece of glass, shop towels, and hubcap polish, 3M was involved with pretty much everything else.
First, here's the level of polish I achieved (this was only done on the ugly grinding side:
As you can see, it looks slightly more reflective.
Next is the side I didn't regrind:
This side got lipservice from 400 and 800 grit wetdry and buffing compound and I really only prettied up the manufacturer's already great work.
The mirrored-side, well, it still has some grind marks. Here are more inclusive pictures:
Using sandpaper and polishing paper over float glass made following the contours of the blade easier than holding sandpaper in hand (loose or with a sanding block) and it polished faster than I expected (the steel seems to be a powdered D2 or similar). What I like about the wet/dry paper is that it's so sharp and fast cutting even when it breaks down. The down side is that it breaks down and wears out very quickly. Were I going to make both sides all shiny and pretty, only one side at a time would get polished with fresh pieces of paper for each side. Also, if I didn't already have the polishing paper, I would've got some 1,500 and finer wet/dry sander. The buffing compound is a must, too, as it removes some of the streaks one gets from polishing with coated abrasives (though not all, as I had to restart this project twice to fix mistakes I made. Yay third time!). Flitz, Simichrome, and Metal-Glo are possibly all better, but I was at K-Mart and just chose the metal polish that didn't require ventillation (or I would've used Mother's Mag polish).
I know it's nothing new and most of you already do it even better and poor Bill D. has been telling me to do it this way all along, but it's what I did and I wanted to share.
The difference is that I set the bevel for a friend's knife and later read an article on microfinishing that seemed applicable to grinding (the article mentioned using flat surfaces for polishing round objects and round surfaces for polishing flat objects and since polishing is grinding....) and have a Harbor Freight wet-grinder. The wet-grinder uses an 8" silicon carbide wheel and the set-up costs as much as DMT's extra extra coarse benchstone (but cuts faster).
So I slapped the left-hand side of the blade onto the grinder (highly assymetrical double-beveled knives are the "in" thing don't you know?) and thinned out the edge. As one may expect from a wetgrinder that cuts faster than a D8XX, the edge/relief bevel/whatevermathingysideof knife didn't look so pretty:
What eventually "worked" to pretty that up was a $5 variety pack of wet/dry sandpaper, a float glass plate, a 3M restickable gluestick, 3µ aluminum oxide polishing cloth, and some Meguiar's Hot Rims polish (with cinnamon scent!). Other than the piece of glass, shop towels, and hubcap polish, 3M was involved with pretty much everything else.
First, here's the level of polish I achieved (this was only done on the ugly grinding side:
As you can see, it looks slightly more reflective.
Next is the side I didn't regrind:
This side got lipservice from 400 and 800 grit wetdry and buffing compound and I really only prettied up the manufacturer's already great work.
The mirrored-side, well, it still has some grind marks. Here are more inclusive pictures:
Using sandpaper and polishing paper over float glass made following the contours of the blade easier than holding sandpaper in hand (loose or with a sanding block) and it polished faster than I expected (the steel seems to be a powdered D2 or similar). What I like about the wet/dry paper is that it's so sharp and fast cutting even when it breaks down. The down side is that it breaks down and wears out very quickly. Were I going to make both sides all shiny and pretty, only one side at a time would get polished with fresh pieces of paper for each side. Also, if I didn't already have the polishing paper, I would've got some 1,500 and finer wet/dry sander. The buffing compound is a must, too, as it removes some of the streaks one gets from polishing with coated abrasives (though not all, as I had to restart this project twice to fix mistakes I made. Yay third time!). Flitz, Simichrome, and Metal-Glo are possibly all better, but I was at K-Mart and just chose the metal polish that didn't require ventillation (or I would've used Mother's Mag polish).
I know it's nothing new and most of you already do it even better and poor Bill D. has been telling me to do it this way all along, but it's what I did and I wanted to share.
