Thread: My First Restore - Wostenholm

Tom,

it's already a huge improvement. IMO, yes you do. Some more.

Why not go for perfect. You've already worked so hard to get this far. The best way to learn anything is try and sweat it out the first time. That way you can learn and you will know what to do next time.

I give you and the rest of the guys that sand their blades to a perfect mirror finish. It takes a lot of patients which I seem to be short of. In my Tool and Die Maker days I would try to avoid work that required polishing like the plague. I have mellowed some with age but not enough to spend a lot of time polishing. I feel lucky to be able to hone my blades to a perfect edge w/o going crazy.

You're doing excellent work polishing the blade. You may already know, if you want all of the scratches out you need to be sure all scratches in the blade match the grit being used before moving to the next finest grit on your process or you will be wasting your time. Also be sure there is not contamination on the blade or anything else touching the blade from the coarser grits. One stray particle will cause scratches deeper than the current grit and you will going backwards.

Good luck!

That's already a great improvement!
I think you need to decide if you want it mirror, shiny or satin.
If it's mirror, just resign yourself to getting all the scratches out & the hard work that entails.
Shiny & satin look best with a uniform scratch pattern, running from spine to edge.
You don't look too far from mirror there though, so i'd just keep at it!

That looks great Tom! Very good for your first! I've been using a vibratory tumbler with walnut shells and jewlers rouge after I use the sand paper. Just leave it in the tumbler anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on the scratches, and the blade will come out spotless! You can pick one up at Cabela's, if you want to. I have a Pipe Razor in there right now. It has some really nice etching on the blade and is progressing well. I got it off ebay and someone had used some sort of abbrasive on it and there are fine scratches all over it. This will take care of the scratches without damaging the etching hardly at all. Sorry for being so long winded, but listen to Max! He is the man when it comes to blades! When he gets done with one, you think it is actually a mirror your looking into! Keep up the good work! It's fun, ain't it?!

I felt that the 400 to 800 sandpaper was uncomfortable. I went "wet" after 800 because the paper was just loading up after 1 or 2 passes. I will go back with 600 and add some 1500 in there. I finished with diamond pastes 600, 2K, 8K, 15K, and CrO2 with my rotary tool. The pastes don't really do enough to remove the scratches with the low speed of the rotary tool.

I've been thinking of getting a buffing wheel and charging it with the 600 paste. Will that work better? I have enough experience with blades not to overheat.

I think I will invest in a tumbler, though, especially if it can get rid of those last scratches. As much as I like to do this, I end up dreaming about scratch marks - not that I mind, but my wife has often told me that she would rather I had an affair instead of thinking about sharpening all the time.

Thanks!

I began a restore once and decided that hand sanding for hours wasn't my thing. I aborted the mission and shave with the old thing as is. Like Joed I don't mind honing them but polishing ain't my bag. Hats off to you Tom. Keep up the good work.

I think that in a previous life, I was a substandard sword polisher. As much as I say that I don't want to do the work, I find myself doing the work.

There is just something so beautiful about scratches on metal - kind of like art....

So Tom, I guess your stones must be curved to fit the concave ?
Looks like you have the beginnings of a nice hazy Kasumi style finish.
I suppose you could shape a piece of Uchigumori or Narutaki for a final polish ?
Have to be quicker than doing a full length sword

Originally Posted by onimaru55

So Tom, I guess your stones must be curved to fit the concave ?
Looks like you have the beginnings of a nice hazy Kasumi style finish.
I suppose you could shape a piece of Uchigumori or Narutaki for a final polish ?
Have to be quicker than doing a full length sword

I took my flat slip stones, which are only about 1mm thick, and 1cm wide and rounded over the sides. I'm even thinking of cutting a small piece of the slip stone and gluing it to a piece of cloth, thinning out the stone and using it like the final few stages of the sword polishing. Or I could just get a tumbler....

I used the slip stones on some other knives, but the edges were convex, making it much easier. BTW, Jimmy, here's my porn. I stopped at 2K because any finer, and the blade gets too much suction when cutting.

Beautiful blade Jendind