S30V hand sanding issues

Atlas Knife Company

Atlas Knife Company

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Feb 16, 2010
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Belt finished pre-HT to 220 grit, I belt finished to x30 post-HT and hand sanded to 400 grit. I went through about 10 sheets(1/3 sheet) of 600 grit cut to 1" strips on a titanium square and aside from a few 600 grit marks in the perpendicular direction, I got NOWHERE! I took it to the pad sander and after about 6 sheets(again, 1/3 sheet) it did remove the 400 grit lines, but I really don't like the little 600 grit circles. I went back and hand sanded back to 400 grit and now have a nice, clean 400 grit hand rubbed ricasso to tip finish. It only took a couple strips to get it that way.

Is 400 grit the limit of hand sanding S30V? Do I need to press harder, or is it bad paper?

The 400 grit paper is GatorGrit, the 600 grit is 3M.
 
Hear that evil laughter in the background? It's not the paper, it's the vanadium carbides in the steel. S30V, like CPM-3V and other extremely wear-resistant steels, is well, wear-resistant! They keep a great edge but the trade-off is they're a total bear to sharpen let alone polish. You hardly ever see them mirror-polished or even with a fine hand-rub. Bead-blast finishes are probably the most common on those types of steel, and I'm pretty sure that's why.

You can get 3V pretty darn shiny IF you finish as high as you want before HT and do everything in your power to keep it clean during HT. (mine were done in a vacuum furnace thingy so there's no scale or decarb at all) Just for fun I tried a little hand-sanding on the tang of a 3V blade I just got back from Peters, Norton Black Ice just slides over it like water on glass. I imagine S30V is about the same.

After seeing how clean air-hardening blades are coming back from Peter's, I've taken to polishing all of them right up to the desired finish and right down to finished edge thickness before sending them in. Saves a good deal of time.
 
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Aahh, vanadium carbides ,that adds a bit of challenge !

With that in mind does anyone use diamond paper for such projects ? Expensive stuff but it might reduce time and frustration.
 
It's not the paper, it's just hard to finish past 400.

I didn't see a mention of lubricant. I use Simple Green for hand sanding, some folks like 409. On S30V I prefer Cool Tool or some other cutting fluid. Wear gloves, it's not good for you to bath in the stuff or inhale it all day long, which is the reason I don't use it except for on stubborn steels.
 
Yes, Mobil-1 full synthetic and thread cutting lube. No difference by hand, made it nice and shiny on the pad sander. I'm real tempted to go back to media blasted finishing on these beasts. Oh, and I will definitely be hand sanding pre-HT from here on with all my blades.
 
zaph1 said:
Yes, Mobil-1 full synthetic and thread cutting lube. No difference by hand, made it nice and shiny on the pad sander. I'm real tempted to go back to media blasted finishing on these beasts. Oh, and I will definitely be hand sanding pre-HT from here on with all my blades.
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Mobil 1 works for me, I've gotten good results with Wyndex too.

I don't know how much scale I'll get on O1 Ht'ed by Peters but I have a batch almost ready to go out so I'll find out. I think it will still be pretty clean despite being oil-quenched, because most of the scale comes from air in the furnace, right?
 
mete said:
Aahh, vanadium carbides ,that adds a bit of challenge !

With that in mind does anyone use diamond paper for such projects ? Expensive stuff but it might reduce time and frustration.
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Vanadium, gotta love it :) Do you have a link/source for diamond plishing papers? Sounds interesting...
 
Cool, thanks! At $32/sheet I may hold off on that for a while and try the 3M polishing sheets first :eek:
 
This thread is bringing back my carpel tunnel syndrome just from reading it. My best finish is to stay on the ginder and go up as high as I have belts for before the hand rubbing starts. I use 409 cleaner and Rynowet paper for a satin finish. I've only buffed one blade because it took me hours back at the hand rubbing again getting scratches out.
 
james terrio said:
After seeing how clean air-hardening blades are coming back from Peter's, I've taken to polishing all of them right up to the desired finish and right down to finished edge thickness before sending them in. Saves a good deal of time.
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Where/who is Peter?
 
Right, Peters' Heat Treating. Excellent results :thumbup: The more blades you send them at once, the less expensive it gets. My last batch came out to just over $8/blade, including HT, temper, cryo, Rc testing, and shipping both ways.
 
I hand sanded s30v to 1000 grit on a sword and on a cleaver bevel... not fun, really, but that's true of most hand sanding... plus 1 on sanding before heat treat
 
Sanded to 600 grit before HT (Paul Boss, 60HRC) and than finished with 600-800-1000 grit no problem.
 
I learned a lot in this thread about what to do different next time. I left this one finished at 400 grit hand rubbed. I think it looked best that way. Here's the offending beast.
board&knife2.jpg
 
I am laughing at myself right now. I've been beating my head against some Vanadis 10 for the last few days. :o

Turns out it has 5.8% more Vanadium than S30V. :eek:
 
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