Polishing Subpar Liners on a High End Benchmade

T

thallium

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Jan 25, 2011
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I recently got a high end Benchmade knife with visible stainless liners. Overall the fit and finish is great except for the liners. They have machine marks across the liners which look rather uneven and kind of bad.

I took a look at my Spyderco Persistence and in comparison its liners look awesome. They have a slight grain, probably due to polishing, running the length of the liners and it actually looks great, especially for the price of a Persistence.

Anyway, I'm slightly disappointed at the quality of the Benchmade liners. I don't think they should look this bad and especially for the price. I thought the conventional wisdom was that Benchmade had better fit and finish than other production knife companies. Apparently not.

So, the point of this thread was to find out if polishing them with something like Flitz is a good idea. Will they polish easily? What kind of result should I expect? Should I test polish a cheaper knife?
 
The liners polish very easily.

I've done a few knives, I think mothers polish works better.

The other thing, I wouldn't polish much if at all around the pivot screw, in the odd case that the knife was already at the fringes of tolerance.
 
Here's a 710 I did.
I used 600, 800, 1000 & 2000 grit sand paper and then buffed.
DSCN1996.jpg

DSCN1995.jpg

DSCN1985.jpg
 
Skimo said:
The liners polish very easily.

I've done a few knives, I think mothers polish works better.

The other thing, I wouldn't polish much if at all around the pivot screw, in the odd case that the knife was already at the fringes of tolerance.
Click to expand...

I actually wasn't interested in polishing the face of the liners, it was the edges that look bad so affecting the pivot screw should not be an issue. Although, while I have them apart perhaps I might polish the face as well.

Could you mention the specifice Mothers polish you used? I see a lot of what they call mag & aluminum polish on amazon. Is that what you're talking about? Also, what did you use, a towel, dremel etc?
 
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Keyman said:
Here's a 710 I did.
I used 600, 800, 1000 & 2000 grit sand paper and then buffed.
Click to expand...

Those pics look good. Did you have the same machine marks on that 710 that I described? I don't even know that I want them to be super glossy but to just get rid of the cutting marks and make it resemble the blade which is kind of stonewashed looking.
 
oh, around the sides, I'd shoot for 400 or 600 grit, maybe 1,000.

kinda looks like they used a plasma cutter to cut it out, that what you're talking about?

looking good as usual keyman. :D
 
If you are talking about the machine marks from the laser/ water jet/ etc to cut out the liners, then I think you will be disappointed with Flitz or Mothers or any type of polish. You aren't going to remove any metal with those types of compounds really. They are basically to take out super fine scratches that make the metal look dull. You will need sandpaper to take out scratches you can see and fairly coarse sandpaper if you can actually feel them with your fingernail. The Flitz will be the last step to make them look shiny like Keyman's 710.
 
I use both Mother's Mag polish and then follow with Flitz but it is the final step only.
 
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