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My Hope Cutlery was waiting for me when I came back from work tonight. It was in way better shape than I expected from the eBay pictures but has a couples of dark spots on the beautifully etched blade.
I have started carefully cleaning it up with a Japanese polishing/buffing compound (roots soft) and a lint-free cloth but some stains still remain.
What would you recommend to finish the task?
Hard to say without seeing it, but unless your willing to spend a few hours hand sanding the blade with progressively finer grits, you probably wont get much improvement without losing the etching - u will however get a mirror finish.
It depends if you wana compromise. Personally id leave it if i liked the etching.
In the mean time, post some pics and youll get a better evaluation!
I have read that a tumbler is great for these sort of blades. Otherwise, etching is really difficult to keep intact with polishing or buffing.
Check it out here: Tumbler Experiment
Sorry about the low quality, quick hand-held macro shots with the mobile phone.
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In my opinion its super the way it is. hone it up and use it!
u dont wana lose that etching
Maybe I'll just clean it some more before hitting the hones... not that I have the choice right now, anyways ;)
This blade might be good enough to join the "Sophisticated Solingen" club, once better pics are taken.
So I stropped it a bit on my antique pasted paddle strops (rouge, black coating then plain leather) and now I can't wait to try this razor... the blade literally sings.
Now I need to find a 3/8 razor that sort of matches it :w
Is that a 3/8?
No it's a 6/8 maybe 13/16, hence my need to find a more or less matching 3/8 razor for the 'stache. I've started pairing my razors in rotation :w
I had similar situation. the best will be leave it alone if you want to keep etching.
I have a similar issue -- tarnished blade with etching. I would like to preserve the etching which is already difficult to read. I was thinking of trying to clean it up with some Maas. I take it that the concensus based on the above is that Maas would likely remove the etching? Maybe I should think about polishing up the spine and the tang and leaving the blade itself alone?
