Advice on blade polishing?

My first restorations is going relatively smoothly except for the blade. It was rusty and all stained and had a small crack in the edge. I sanded almost 1/8th of an inch of the edge to fix the crack but couldn't get the stains outs with 100 grit sandpaper.

After a couple hours, I got tired of hand sanding and took my dremel with a wheel on it and got it out. But now, I have ugly dremel wheel marks on the blade. I tried to hand sand those out with more 100 grit. Two movies later, I did not see much if any progress.

Anyway I can get those scratches out? In the mean time, I dunked the whole thing in hot vinegar and forced a very dark patina so they aren't too noticeable, but I think it would look better if I could get it shiny.

are you using sand paper sand paper or metal sanding paper (emery, silicon carbide zirconia ETC)? if you are just using regular sandpaper it won't abrade away the metal much since the abrasive is too soft or won't stay on the backing.

Have you found the sticky at the top of the Workshop forum yet ????

http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...wers-here.html

There is enough info in there to restore thousands of razors hundreds of ways... Read the Q&A sections of those threads too as there are some nuggets of true wisdom hidden in there...

I did the read the sticky and was trying to follow those methods.

Yup. Thanks tenderfoot, that would probably be my problem. I did not even think about the difference. I just walked into my shop and grabbed up some sand paper.

If you do alot of metal sanding mcmaster carr sells 20 yard rolls of emery paper for about $20 in fine, medium and coarse. it really does the trick for sanding metal as it leaves a somewhat finer finish then the ceramic high tech abrasives (but cuts slower).

when I started restoring I started with hand sanding and after a few blades I found out that dremel helps a lot.
I used this tutorial to make my sanding drum:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...-tutorial.html

for removing the 100 grit marks, I'd suggest 120 sand paper drums then 220 and so on until you feel good about the blade.
A very big word of caution dremel can damage the blade if you are not careful, always wear protection. make sure the drum rotates away from the edge (I have drawn an arrow indication rotation direction on mine).
It is very useful if you have a jig to hold the blade in place while sanding it with the dremel.

Update: Having sand paper made for metal made a world of difference. The scratches I made, some are still there. Some are gone. And some, apparently were just hiding the pitting that I cleaned out using the dremel.

I'm going to sand some more and see if it gets any better. I doubt I currently have the skill to make it a mirror polish, but I'm pretty sure I can get it to a place that I'm happy with. It won't be a pretty blade. It will have lots of character. :D:D

So thanks for all the advice. Some time I'll get around to trying to make my own dremel stuff. I like that idea. :p

The right abrasive makes a big difference, as you've discovered. With each grit change, take a slightly different angle across the area you're working on. Any scratches from the last grit will really stand out. This helps make sure you got all the scratches from the last time. Keep stepping down, one grit after another until you need magnifiers to see scratches. Once you're there, most of us old guys can't see that well and it will look polished to us. ;)

Keep your methods simple and practice is all you need to get the skills.

The toutorial for the sanding drums is great I make them from 600 grit to 2000 grit for my dremel. I try not to go to much lower than 600 if i can help it. One thing I do is go north south direction " up and down" with one grit then go east west "left and right" for the next you can see the scratches a little better