When to polish the blade

C

crazydad42

Joined
Aug 12, 2012
Messages
19
After grinding, when is it best to sand and polish the blade, before or after heat treating?

Thanks for the help. I'm working on my second knife and really enjoying the hobby. I appreciate the advice.
 
I thought most people will sand till like 220, before heat treat. And because heattreat causes all that black scale crap to cover the metal, you then polish it after heattreat.
 
I sand to 360 before heat-treat to flatten any gouges and remove the coarse grinding scratches.
After heat-treat I'll start at my previous grit or one step back depending on the heat-treat method, and then go up to the final polish (usually 1000, but sometimes 600).
 
it depends on the HT.
If you have it vacuum hardened (stainless) you can finish it as fine as you like.
IF the hardener is carefull and doesn't scratch your blades.
I've had 1500grit come back fine and also with scratches that had me take them out with 400
 
Sand to around 400 in most cases. If doing stainless blades, a finer finish may be OK, but polishing is always after HT.

Crazydad and sintro,
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