5 Attachment(s)
3M Polish and When is it Done?
OK, so after seeing Outback's examples, it made me think maybe I am not living up to my full potential. I find it difficult to know because at different angles the light may flaws, but not at others. While from afar the blades look polished, a close up, or with a loupe, shows I usually have some small dull yellowish areas. Also, some dark spots remain. Here is an example. It is from Fox Cutlery Company.
I apparently didn't take a series of "before" pictures. But, this is what it looked like when I stopped using 3M and steel wool. The arrow shows a spot that was still rough if you drug a fingernail across it. Which I figured I would need to sand out.
I decided to use wet sanding from here. I used 600 and 800 grit on the tang. There was a lot of roughness on the bottom of the tail. And then I started doing the blade at 1000 grit up to 3000 grit. I got a 6 pack of polishing compound that I put on leather and went black, brown, white, green, red, and blue.
So, one note on my progression. Even with my 10X loupe I can't see sanding scratches going the length of the blade. So, after I finish with one grit I just sand spine to edge a few times to get it all scratched up and can tell when I have removed those on my next step. Once I get done with the black compound I can't see any scratches at all, so from there it is just a guess. I should experiment and see if I can even tell a difference from black to blue to see if it is even worth continuing. I'm not sure blue is even strong enough to do anything on metal, but I have it so I try.
I tried to add the photos between the text, but it didn't seem to work. The photo that has no text (oops) is the front of the blade after doing final polish.
Thanks for any help. And like I've said before, be harsh, it'll make me do better.