Thread: Will the Scratches Ever Come Out?

In learning to use my buffer, through my own minimal experience and talking to others, I have found the following seems to be very helpful in eliminating scratches. Before changing up in grit, you should be using only the lightest pressure in a single direction, and you should not move up until only scratches in that direction remain. This will ensure that you have the shallowest scratches possible from that grit. Then, when you move up in grit by one step, work perpendicular (or at least across) the previous grit's scratch pattern and eliminate it completely. Then, switch directions, reduce pressure, and eliminate those initial scratches. Rinse and repeat until you are back to next to no pressure and have a unidirectional scratch pattern. Then jump up again and do the same process.

By reducing pressure to make shallower scratches, you will have less work to do when you jump up in grit. By changing directions, you can always catch the blade in the right light to see if you eliminate your previous scratches.

It seems the trick next is to learn how to carefully control your pressure and vary your directions at each stage to minimize the amount of time you spend.

This is what I am working on with my buffer, but since hand sanding is essentially the same thing, but by hand, I figure some of it will probably translate. It's just too bad I can't bring the buffer to the meet - it would fit in the car, but I'm sure the proprietor would not appreciate the mess.

+1 on what holli4pirating said. That is exactly what I do.
You could also try your local Auto accessory type store. They seem to have a better range of W/D paper (the ones around here do anyway), you sould be able to fill in some of the gaps in your progression, 180, 320 grits etc

+1 to holli here as well. This seems to be working pretty well for me on the three blades I am trying to polish and the razors that I am setting up for rotation as well. I just have a problem with finding a stopping point. I mean, for a daily user that you are not taking to a mirror finish, when do you let it go? I tend to grab a blade in relatively good shape, clean and disinfect it, and think "maybe I will hit it with some 1000 to take a bit of the dust off..." and forty minutes later my hands are black and I am working 220 on a scaleless blade. What do you guys do to just CLEAN UP a daily user?

Being in the city, there aren't any Autozones nearby. I've tried to go perpendicular from grit to grit, but Dylan's idea is better thought out and might work better. Part of this could just be some undiagnosed OCD...

Paul,

I worked on a blade for two weeks and finally gave up on hand sanding. When I got to final polish, it just showed scratches here and there that drove me crazy! I know it must be possible but I finally pulled out the buffer and tumbler and got there that way.


Barry

When I was doing only hand work, I used synthetic steel wool instead of sandpaper. I found that using the synth steel wool with MAAS seemed to leave far less scratches than when using just the synth steel wool. For example, with MAAS, the grey 000 Norton synth steel wool will not leave scratches (that I can see), but without MAAS it will.