Where do I go from here?...Getting rid of 2000grit scratches

Robert Hankins

Robert Hankins

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May 19, 2003
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Where do I go from here?...Getting rid of 2000grit scratches
Working on a decent Bowie blade and am down to the 2k grit level
Using clay hardened S5/water quench and starting to get a decent Hamon with some ghost lines...
How do I procede?
Promised pics to a fellow forumite but want to make em proud:D
 
I haven't done this but I think you might be ready for a light etch and rubbing with simi chrome. (Maybe now someone who knows what they're doing will say something.)
 
Dave is right.You can continue with polishing paper to 8000,or stop now and give it a light etch and polish with rouge/flitz/simi-chrome/etc.Wherever you stop the sanding/polishing - it is time for the etch and polish.
 
2000 grit? :eek: You're already about 1200 grit finer than most makers go. :)

Flitz, Semichrome and vinegar now. :)
 
Polishing paper from K&G with a soft backer. rub only along the lenght of the blade. Work all the way up to the pink stuff. Gives the same sort of look that the etching does but way better. :eek: Oh almost forgot to mention that this will take about a day and a half per grit. :p
 
Two things I use after everthing else: a 9 or 10 oz scrap of leather to burnish the blade surface and a piece of Levi material. They both do wonders for those little surface blems that nothing else will touch. Fred
 
Ignore all them posts above. If you aren't getting the finish you want with 2,000 grit(and who is?), ya need to go out and get a brass tumbler like they use to polish brass for reloading bullets. Get a pint of the polishing agent, 2 lbs of corn high polish media, stir and shake well, add the blade, and come back in 12 hours. It will either be the most beautiful mirror polished finish NASA has ever seen, or the blade would have dissolved...

WYK
 
Blinker said:
Thanks Gentlemen!
Etch recomendations??? Have both vinegar + Radio Shack stuff.
Click to expand...

I use ferric dilluted 3 to 1 with distilled water, 3 to 6 20 second etches and rub the oxide off between each etch with a micro fine 3M sanding pad/spunge and water, after the last etch I rub with simicrome or flitz. Just mess with it until you like it. I've never tried vinegar.

Don Hanson lll sunfishforge.com
 
rhrocker said:
Don, does your formula/sequence work well when trying to pull a good hamon?
Click to expand...
This is what I use it for, I finish and etch carbon blades for the hamon. Is there anything else :p But my formula/sequence is ever changing and evolving. It's a disease :p

Don Hanson lll sunfishforge.com
 
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