What have you found to be the most commonly preferred knife finish?

What have you found to be the most commonly preferred knife finish?

  • Mirror Polish

    Votes: 1 10.0%

  • Light Polish

    Votes: 1 10.0%

  • Flat/no finish

    Votes: 3 30.0%

  • Stonewash

    Votes: 5 50.0%

  • Acid etched stonewash

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Dark acid etched stonewash.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Dark acid etched stonewash.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Something else

    Votes: 2 20.0%
  • Total voters
    10
Steelhog

Steelhog

Joined
Jul 2, 2009
Messages
1,176
In general, What have you found to be the most commonly preferred knife finish? I know this will very greatly but in general what would you say is the most common or fastest moving finish or finishes for your shop.

I'm sure there are many more finish options but those are the ones I could think of at the moment…..
  • Mirror Polish
  • Light Polish
  • Flat/no finish
  • Stonewash
  • Acid etched stonewash
  • Dark acid etched stonewash.
 
Last edited:
I really only do two, hand sanded to a high-ish grit like 800 or so and hand sanded to 600, then dipped in ferric chloride to bring out a Damascus pattern. Oh, I have done rust bluing too, but only occasionally.
Not that I am done paragon of knife making. Hell I've only sold one thing so far and that was a hatchet
 
My guess this will be affected by what sort of knife you're selling
A stone washed replica medieval sword might not be popular if you're selling to people who want an accurate sword

I usually do a satin finish on my kitchen knives, unless there is a hamon
 
I prefer doing a hand satin to 500-800 grit, depending on the steel. Not a huge fan of mirror polish, but that may be because I am not good at doing them...:)
 
I like two tone hand finishes.
Usually the flats and spine a few grits higher then the bevels.
I go anywhere from 400 to 2500
 
I usually do a belt satin finish with a soft platen, and clean up with fine or very fine non woven belts or a cork belt. I want to try Brodbecks game changer belts. AO compact grain up to 320 look pretty nice, just need to find finer grit ones! I have started to do some 600-800 grit hand rub finishes on some knives. Using EDM stones makes it go a LOT quicker than just sandpaper! I go to 800 or 1000 EDM stone, and then down to SiC sandpaper for the final grit usually at 600.
 
On 90% of my knives I do a 400 grit satin (spine to edge) and then clean up on a medium Scotch Brite belt.
 
I have the maroon, green (now called grey), and blue belts. Sanded over a finish left by a fresh 400 grit 3M or Nova belt, the maroon leaves a finish about 200 grit, green/grey about 300 grit, and blue about 400 grit.

In finishing you should always go to a higher than the finish grit and then step back. Do the same after HT Step back to a grit below the final pre-HT grit).
This assures removal of deeper scratches that may show up in the final finish.

All that said, sometimes I have an awesome 220/320 grit finish and just hit it with the medium scotch-brite belt there or leave it as it is.

I save the blue belt for touching up slight wear blemishes. I don't like the finish it leaves when used as a final belt normally. It seems to be smudgy or something.
 
I use the green with windex and and grey with wd40, works good on simple carbon and stainless steels. Doesn't really touch the highly alloyed wear resistant steels.
 
I’ve done course belt finishes to 2000 grit hand sanded finishes and everything in between, pretty much the only thing I haven’t done is a true mirror polish.
I think stonewash is one of the better finishes for general purpose blades because it‘s easy to do, you don’t have to worry about scratching it after it’s done and it looks good and stays looking good after using it.
And to answer your question, a lot of people like it!
 
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I guess i dont know which of your choices it would be, but like the rest, it depends. Kitchen cutlery is hand sanded to 1200 or so. EDC and hunters 800 usually
 
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