Thread: sanding w/o polishing - what kind of finish?

I have a wide grit range of high-quality sandpaper sold right down the street. Polishing compounds have proven much harder to come by, and I'd be doing everything by hand anyway.

Basically, I'd just like to remove small amounts of pitting/staining and forestall further oxidation. I'm not looking to get a perfect mirror finish at this time, but can one at least get a clean-looking, uniformly hazy finish by progressing up to P2500 sandpaper?

Originally Posted by northpaw

...can one at least get a clean-looking, uniformly hazy finish by progressing up to P2500 sandpaper?

The short answer is, yes - absolutely.


The long answer is that it's really a matter of what kind of finish you want, and whether or not you have the patience to get there. Just be sure that you don't use more pressure than you really need, take plenty of time with each grit, and sand as evenly as humanly possible.

When moving from grit to grit, you need to make sure you've sanded out all the scratches from the previous grit, before moving on. What I've found helpful is to clean the blade with flitz or maas between grits. If you can't get metal polish then use something to clean the blade well. This will allow you to see the scratch marks better. Maybe you're sharper than I am, but my first blade I ploughed through the grits, thinking I had mopped up all the scratch marks from the previous grit, but I hadn't. It wasn't until I got to the end, polished the blade, that I could see I needed to start over.

I know you said polishing compounds are hard to come by in your area but I'd think there must be something available that would be similar to flitz or maas. If you could find some, then you could use it after the 2500 grit and polish the blade a little more.

Good luck and have fun with it. Remember to take before and after pictures.

Place a coin next to the blade to see how sharp the reflection is. Even after 1500, you can see the coin very well, and at 2000, the details are quite good. I will try to post a pic later.

You could try using Toothpaste. In my searches I found some references to it as an easy to find yet very(very) slow metal polish.

It's not really polish but it didn't hurt to give it a shot. It did help get rid of some tiny black spots here and there if that's something you're looking for.

Here is a razor I'm working on that I started on with toothpaste after going to 2000 grit. One side of the blade is less foggy than the other although doing this by hand is a PITA. The lighting is not great but I hope you can see the bronze object I'm holding in the surface of the blade.

When I was restoring my C-Mon I was tempted to stop at 800 grit. I liked the brushed look of the razor. I decided to push on and finished with 2000 grit. I found as the 2000 grit became worn it polished a little more. The blade had a near mirror polish. Only in the right angle of light did you see an scratches. When I sent it to Ken Rup for honing he buffed it and it's as good as new now.

The picture below is after the 2000 and before I sent it off.

Thanks to all for the responses!

This is all very encouraging. I wasn't expecting anything like those pictures, wow. That really drives the point home.

Is it safe to assume that a (relatively) blemish-free blade is less prone to gradual oxidation than one with dark spots and pits? Trying to motivate myself, here.

I take my hat off to those of you with the patience to hand sand your blades. I gave it a shot on a couple and decided that the patina gave the blade character. Also where I live the hard water tends to leave water spots on a highly polished blade right from jump street so I have an excuse. If the blade already has some tarnish I don't notice the new stuff. Good luck with your endeavor Northpaw.

Another thing to try is to use regular polish (such as Mass, what have you...) when sanding at 600 or higher grit. It helps lube the sandpaper, and adds shine. Give it a whirl.

Originally Posted by Vekta

You could try using Toothpaste.

I've used toothpaste as a polish quite a bit, but I find it to be much better suited to polishing soft materials like plastic and celluloid. I suppose it would work on a razor as well, but it would be INCREDIBLY slow.