Thread: Cleaning up etched blades

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.

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

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

I had similar situation. the best will be leave it alone if you want to keep etching.