Thread: How to get a satin finish

For the first blades I'm going to polish, I want only a satin finish. What polishing compound will give me that?

None of the polishing compounds will leave you a satin finish on the steel, they are made to polish the steel. A satin finish is more or less a rough finish IMO. I have left some blades with a "brushed steel" look that some may call a satin finish with my dremel and "finishing abrasive buffs", dremel part number 512 or 512E. If you choose to attempt this, please keep the rotation of the buffer away from the edge and watch the heat or you will ruin your razor and even worse, hurt yourself.

I've also gotten a type of satin finish out of my tumbler and walnut media.

Hope this helps,
Scott

Thanks for your reply, Shooter. I am well aware of the hazards of using a buffer, but it never hurts to have reminders. I tried a tumbler, but in my opinion it just didn't work for me. However, I may have started with the wrong media. I started with RCBS Formula 1, rather than straight walnut. Nevertheless, I'm going to put the blade back in for a while and see what happens.

I played a little with trying to get satin finishes, but never really liked how it came out. You could go up through 600 greaseless with the wheel spine to edge and just polish that up a bit without trying to actually remove the scratches.

Or some guys have said they're getting good satin finishes off scotch brite pads.

I have had good luck with scothbrite. It works better if you get it shiny/polished first then dull back down to a satin finish.

Charlie

Butch (loyd Harner) has got some excellent satins on his blades, as far as I can tell from photos.
Perhaps he would like to share how??

Just mail it to a newbie restorer with a buffer and request a mirror finish.
Problem solved.

If you go to the watch tool suppliers they have foam blocks containing grit and they are designed to produced satin and brushed finishes on 316L stainless and Titanium so they should work for razors too.

Thanks, everyone.

I've had some luck with a 220 grit wet dry paper. You need some sort of sanding block (I use the big fat round one in the A column from this page). The trick seems to be to move up and down the blade from bevel to spine with consistent pressure while moving ever so slowly from heel to toe. This gives a reasonably uniform look.

I then hit it with a reasonably high grit paper, like 800 or 1000. The direction of the sanding is still from bevel to spine. This knocks off the high points of the 220 scratches, but doesn't knock too much off to make the metal shiny.

I'm not suggesting this is a replacement for a machine finish satin, but it looks reasonably good. As long as you move from heel to toe slowly enough that you have vertical scratch lines. Curvy ones are a no-no.