Thread: New Idea??? Experimentation....

Originally Posted by Philadelph

Nice. Why not take the "hard" road and just leave the water out but move the tumbler? lol That might have a better result.

Yes, that might've My next test might be without the water. I was also considering using mineral oil instead of water.

Originally Posted by D2T

The bad

- Massive tarnish. The blade is almost black in appearance. I tried polishing a few spots and it comes off with a little work. Possibly a roll in the walnut/corncob'll work that out for me.

Not sure if it will work the same but when I polish jewelry in a rock tumbler I put a small squirt of Dawn dish soap in it. it helps keep that black junk from adhering to the jewelry. I tumble Stainless Steel, Copper, Titanium and some Silver with Stainless Steel shot for media

Bob

Originally Posted by CactusBob

Not sure if it will work the same but when I polish jewelry in a rock tumbler I put a small squirt of Dawn dish soap in it. it helps keep that black junk from adhering to the jewelry. I tumble Stainless Steel, Copper, Titanium and some Silver with Stainless Steel shot for media

Bob

I'll give that a shot. thanks! A night in walnut loaded with CrO cleared it up, but I'd prefer not to have to deal with it at all.

Lots of good work going on in this thread, many people here have jumped in with both feet and done more experimenting then we could have ever hoped for.....
I think with out a doubt we have established that this is a viable method of getting an almost perfect mirror finish with out spending hours of hand cramping hours working on each blade...
My system has been proven on my 3rd razor now, and here is my break down
Sunday morning, Scrape away excess rust off blade, using a small corn razor... Start with 220 grit sandpaper and rough off the worst of the stains and rust, move to 320 grit and continue as normal, cleaning up the blade, then moving to 400 and finaly leaving a smooth clean finish ( this takes 1/2 to 1 hour)
Sunday morning the blade goes in the Treated Walnut tumbler....
Wed night after work, blade comes out of the walnut and I switch it to the Corn Cob...
Sunday morning the blade is finished and I start again...
Using this system I can work 2 blades every week if I have the need....
This is what I have done with my first 3 blades so far and I am getting mirror results... This one is a DD Special #1

I spoke with Bill Ellis on this subject and he told me that "in a nutshell"
he had used ths method in the past and he has a large tumbler. He told me
that he got impatient at the time it took & he has a lot of restore's to do.
He also mentioned that it does a decent job but not so well on the pitting.
So I guess if your not restoring alot of blades, this can get most of the job done in a decent way. I will start posting my before & after pics shortly.
This is a great thread and we have to keep it going. Also would like take
the time to thank the guys who started this thread and it is more info that I could ask for. But let's keep it going.


Gary

Since I really haven't posted my conclusions on this topic I guess I'll do so now.

This is a great option but it isn't perfect for everyone. Myself, regardless of whether or not my tumbler broke, the results no matter how well it works do not balance out the time it takes. NOTE that this is only MY personal opinion! You can get great results, but I would rather hand sand from 400 up (which is the fastest part of the hand sanding process anyway). If you want to get a blade with nothing but mirror with this process and the blade you start has a lot of pitting, it will take hours of hand sanding before you can use the tumbler to begin with. For me, mirror polish isn't the greatest thing on earth. I think it has its time and place. I also have a lot of blades to work on, for myself and others, so I prefer the relative "speed" of doing the work by hand. I actually have given up on the tumbler as a viable option for myself for good.

Don't think I am downplaying this, because I'm not. I do think that if you don't already have a tumbler and want to do this, it is a good idea to really think it through before laying down the cash. Just remember that if your razor is any less than perfect, it will still take hours of hand work before the 3+ days of waiting for the tumbler to finish polishing. Thanks again to Glen and BT for their spearheading this experiment. Good luck!

Originally Posted by Philadelph

the results no matter how well it works do not balance out the time it takes. NOTE that this is only MY personal opinion!

But the tumbler is working while you can be doing something else. Many folks don't have the large blocs of time for the sandpaper but may have time for a tumbler. I don't know what time is involved in the tumbler because I haven't read every post but I am usually eager to try any method that allows my work to get done without me having to do it (lazy? no no no, efficient!)

I agree. If I was in the business of restoring razors this method would probably be a little too slow for my needs. But I'm not, I'm just a code monkey that likes to pick up interesting little hobbies

THanks for the up front work and out of the box thinking, guys.

I am a wee bit confused...YES! more than usual.
After reading each post twice...I come away with the idea that the walnut with cleaner/polish will do away with most of the scut work sanding. Just work at the bad parts with some 220 for a while to loosen it up and let the blade sit in the tumbler for a day or two.
THEN move on to corn cob with polish to get a mirror shine.
Nothing is ever 100% so there will be differences in all blades.
Keep the scales on. this extends the time in tumbler a lot.

The most recent posts indicate, to me, that sanding up to ~ 400 is needed before tumbling.
What is the consensus? If any????
Best to all.
This is exciting and fun. I love experimentation.
I have no tumbler(s) or media. Yet.

Experience so far has shown that 220 & 320 grit scratches will survive extended lengths of exposure to any combination of walnut media/compounds and corncob media/compounds. So far.

Boiled down, that means if you want a mirror finish, you need to do something to the razor first to get it to 400 equivalent grit. From there:

Walnut Media + Rubbing Compound (Turtle Wax Liquid worked for me) + time will take the razor to an almost mirror finish.

Followed by Corncob Media + Tumbler Liquid (Flitz worked for me) + time will take the razor to mirror finish.

If you had left 220 and 320 grit scratches, they'll be barely visible after the above treatments - meaning it's not **fully** mirror. If you depit the razor and sand (or buff or grind) up through 400 grit sanding, you should have a mirror / blemish free finish.

The extension or continuation of this as an "experiment" is whether we might be able to use some sort of ceramic media and ??? compound to depit and clean up what we're doing by hand with 220 and 320 grit sandpaper....

Does that help?

(PS. I'll post pictures of my Red Imp (hard HARD HARD carbon steel - as in worse case ) to show what I mean by what's left after the treatments....)