Thread: Mirror Finish?

I've been working on my first restoration project and was wondering how to go about getting a mirror finish. I've used 3 grades of emory cloth and have been polishing forever with polishing wheels and the black, red, and white compounds that came with the Ryobi polishing set-up. I've used an 18 volt drill 'cause I don't have a dremel. Should I be using a watercloth grit sandpaper to get that mirror finish, or what?

If you include grit ratings that could help. I go from wherever I started the progression up to 800 grit dry, then to 1000-5000 grit wet, then to micromesh and finally maas or mothers polish and that is my entire hand-sanding progression.

Micro mesh it up to at least 10000 then take it to the buffer. Run it on some white, then chrome ox, then polish.

I'm a little frustrated. I've only been able to fine 1000 and 2000 grit wet-dry and no one can tell me where to find 5000. I have no idea what micro mesh is and haven't seen it on the shelf anywhere. Where am I supposed to be looking?

Micromesh can be found at Woodcraft, either online or in one of their brick and morter stores.

At 1000 you will still be able to see scratches, but you will have a semi mirror finish. 2000 is a nice finish. I found higher grits at Hobby Lobby. But finishing with Mother's chrome polish, Maas or similar really makes a big difference.

I just finished my first blade with the 2k grit last night. It is nice and shiny. Still need to polish it. Cant wait to see the result. I would just work the sanding progression up to 2k and give it a good polish. I bet you will be pleased with your results.

Jon

I recently purchased some micormesh after looking at some other posts about it here at SRP and brought it home. Wow. I couldn't ask for a better choice for the next step beyond 2000 grit. This stuff is amazing. Right now, I'm doing everything by hand as I don't need to stir the Kraken (she's a sweetie though,...really) by purchasing anything else.

You can polish steel from the 1000 to 1500 grit wet abrasive paper, but the sheer amount of work on the buffer, and use of the coarser compounds, are very liable to produce rounded edges, defacement of etched inscriptions etc. Still, that isn't the problem you describe here. Three grades of paper is very few, unless you were starting with a blade which was good enough to start out with a fine grade. I think the problem wasn't the coarseness of the 200 grit paper, but the size of the gap between that and the next coarsest you used.

I don't believe anybody really needs to use paper of 5000 to 10000 grit, and if you do, the advice sometimes seen here to wet it with WD40 is good. Water evaporates quickly, and it takes very slight use of paper like that, once dried, to clog the grains.

I just picked up some micromesh in a 9 pack set at Lee Valley