Thread: Did I lose temper on this blade?

It looks like you didn't remove the bigger scratches from the coarser wheels. Those deep scratches won't disappear from polishing compounds, you will have to do it again from the beginning.

Jeness is absolutely right. The rule for buffing is that scratches from one coarseness of grit have to be completely removed by the next finer grit since successively finer grits used beyond that point will only polish (but not remove) those scratches which remain.

So these scratches are from the lower-grit compounds and not my final 600? I'll go back and spend more time on each grit; but to make sure I have this right I'd like to point out that as I was using the 600 it seemed to be making scratch marks of its own, much like the other compounds but only finer marks. What you are saying is that these scuff marks wouldn't be here if I had properly removed each prior compound; the 600 grit would result in a close-to mirror finish (if done correctly)?

600 grit will not give you a mirror finish but should give a very even satin finish, like say a DOVO Razor. What you have there is a mixture of scratch sizes.

At the end of each grit, the only scratches you should see are the ones from that grit.
So if you start at 80, the 120 is to remove the 80 grit scratches, 180 to remove the 120 and so on. When you get to 600 grit the only scratches on the blade when you start should be from your 400 grit compound. When you end, the only scratches should be what the 600 grit made.

Regarding my earlier comment, maybe it's the lighting or maybe it's my particular 80 grit... I don't get scratches that deep from it though. Perhaps I'm the only one...

If you go back in grit to remove some of the deeper scratches then there is no need to go back to the 80 or 120 grit. Start at the next higher level.

This thread and the one Glen linked to are both really helpful. I just started messing with greaseless again. Figure I'll just tack my questions on this.

I was getting that spine wear, so I started polishing the blade like Dylan in the other thread (long way), that seemed to help, but how do you get up into the shoulders that way? I really can't figure a way that doesn't grind down the tang, or which doesn't use a smaller wheel. I've got 4 inch wheels.

Also, I initially tried Glens method of holding the razor, which helps alot when polishing horizontally, but I was still getting the spine wear and not really hitting the full hollow of the blade. Does that just mean my wheels are too large to polish the blade like that? The blades I'm practicing on are about 5/8. I really haven't seen anyone mention using something like a 2 inch wheel, like it seems like you'd need to really get into the hollow.