Thread: Sand and Polish or Leave Character Marks?

Well, my summer is racing by, and my time is increasingly dominated by getting ready for my new Fall assignment as department chair and AP Language and Literature teacher, so it's getting harder to find shop and play time with all the reading and prep I'm having to do. But I thought I might try to sneak in one more. So I got in a lot of fixer-uppers from Oz/Onimaru from our BST, and am most immediately intrigued by this nice Boker "Our Own" Hollow Ground:



It came in yellow plastic scales with the metal bolsters, though the pin was just about gone. I just popped it right out. I'm debating whether to keep it OG or rescale it in some nice cocobolo or nice brown streaked horn from the current blanks I have.

Anyway, as you can see from the pics, it's in pretty good shape save for some surface tarnish and that damn devil's split black tarnish, which (for me anyways) always seems to polish up all smooth in the initial assessment "let's see what we've got" session with steel wool and Mother's. But then you start sanding, and deep pitting always lies beneath. It's a quarter hollow blade, and has that nice etch, so I'm thinking about just polishing the bejesus out of it, foregoing sanding, and then just leaving the character marks intact.

So what do the experts think? TIA for your thoughts. Aaron/SHD

sorry your pics are not showing up

Wil try again- stupid Photobucket! (Okay, I had to download and do it that way-time to switch photo hosting site I think).

Can't see the pictures, but my go to is 0000 and WD40, then polish with flitz. Removes red rust, but usually leaves the blackening.

I do this for 2 reasons. 1) I like the character of and experience of using a blade that looks like it is 60 years or a century old. 2) I'm extremely lazy.

I'm not an expert by any means. But I believe anything other than cleaning up and polishing will erase the etching.

So there ya go

There are very few occasions where I feel like it really needs to have a thorough sanding. As for replacing the scales, if the old ones are in decent shape I would likely go with those. However that is from the guy that replaces most of his long term resident razors scales with something in bone. I really like the sounds of the streaked horn, maybe go with that. Wood scales are not really my thing. Horn or bone from my point of view, that is if you replace them at all.

I never am above leaving a bit of charachter.

Scrape off any raised rust with a SE razor blade and polish the heck out of it with 0000 steel wool and MAAS or something similar. Maybe sand with wet/dry starting at 1k. It takes a LOT of work to get out pits and you might mess up the etch if you go aggressive on it.

I would take it through 1k sandpaper to 2k leaving some character just removing major rust. Would maybe dip it in some rust removing mix (I use baking soda and lemon juice). Just to make sure any active rust is dead. Then a bit more with 2k grit and polish it up. Here is a made in pic Germany with some before and after pics. I was sort of lazy with restore and still need to finish setting bevel. https://imgur.com/a/pAn6w

My vote is too leave it as is. When the project is finished, if you're happy with it, all is good. If not, you still have the option to polish the blade.