Thread: How to polish/use Mothers?

I recently purchased some Mothers and Blue Magic for cheap. I was wondering what exactly these polishes do and how to effectively use them to acquire the best results. Thank you!

Aloha!

I just use a polishing rag with Mothers. When I purchased Mothers from Amazon, they offered some polishing rags (soft cloth) and I bought them as well, but you can use any softer cloth.

If the blade I'm working on is really bad, I use 400 (lightly), then 800 (moderately) then 1200 grit (firmly) wet sandpaper with WD-40 to take off the heavy rust and get the metal to a relatively decent point to polish. Then I put Mothers directly on the cloth and start rubbing. I do all my Mothers polishing with my hands. I do not use a polishing wheel. Let time and effort work for you. You can't go from zero to perfect in a few minutes of buffing. I add more mothers to a fresh portion of the cloth and keep buffing. When I'm done, I buff with just the clean cloth. You will usually notice you cloth getting black from the polishing. If I were to guess, I'd say I spend about 15-20 minutes per side of a blade polishing with Mothers.

I'm sure others have better methods, but that's what I do and my results have been very good.

-Zip

Originally Posted by ZipZop

Aloha!

I just use a polishing rag with Mothers. When I purchased Mothers from Amazon, they offered some polishing rags (soft cloth) and I bought them as well, but you can use any softer cloth.

If the blade I'm working on is really bad, I use 400 (lightly), then 800 (moderately) then 1200 grit (firmly) wet sandpaper with WD-40 to take off the heavy rust and get the metal to a relatively decent point to polish. Then I put Mothers directly on the cloth and start rubbing. I do all my Mothers polishing with my hands. I do not use a polishing wheel. Let time and effort work for you. You can't go from zero to perfect in a few minutes of buffing. I add more mothers to a fresh portion of the cloth and keep buffing. When I'm done, I buff with just the clean cloth. You will usually notice you cloth getting black from the polishing. If I were to guess, I'd say I spend about 15-20 minutes per side of a blade polishing with Mothers.

I'm sure others have better methods, but that's what I do and my results have been very good.

-Zip

Thanks Zip! Always love to hear from you

Like Zip I always use it with a soft cloth and a lot of elbow grease.

Originally Posted by RezDog

Like Zip I always use it with a soft cloth and a lot of elbow grease.

Does it typically wash out well from the cloth? Or should I buy a dedicated soft cloth.

Originally Posted by Trubino10

Does it typically wash out well from the cloth? Or should I buy a dedicated soft cloth.

I wash my dirty Mother's Polishing Cloths regularly and the black from the elbow grease rubbing does remove fairly well. You will have some staining left over when you launder the cloths, but it's not bad. So you can RE-USE these cloths over and over. At least I have for a long time and there is no problem with using a laundered polishing cloth. The results are the same.

You can look at it this way, when you polish with a brand new cloth, after about 15 seconds the oxidation and tarnish from the blade is already rubbing off on the cloth and you have a slightly dirty cloth anyway. So the little bit of tarnish and soiling that remains on washed polishing cloths is no biggie.

-Zip