Thread: To polish or not to polish? that is the question.

So here I have this greaves wedge that I want to restore, but the blade has a bunch of strains and some pitting. On one hand I can just polish and it would not take that long to get rid of the blemishes, but polishing might get rid of this

If you just polish it with some Mother's and a rag the etching will remain intact, and probably become much more visible.

This has been my personal experience, at least. Good luck.

I would polish the tang and spine. Then, as was recommended, use polish and a rag on the blade to keep some patina and more importantly, the etching.

a little bit of mothers , a little quick hit on the tang with some 1500-2000 , a little hone work , and AAAALLLOOOTTT of good shaves !!! .. thats all id do !!

Please do not basterdize that wonderfull blade,slowly work it by hand as above,This is a case where less is more.

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

basterdize .

im off topic but that word fit the post perfect !!!...lol..

ya what he said above ( there im back on topic )

Well I might just give it away, because I feel like giving up on it. The pitting is just too deep to not sand.

have you tried putting it to the stones to see if the bevel can in fact be made clean? Pitting on the surface does not always necessarily mean a bad edge.

Well even under my inept hands it picked up a nice straight-ish bevel. So before I give up completely I am going to get a -1000 stone and work the bevel a bit (I was using a Norton 4/8k). And second I want it to make it look a bit cleaner. Do far I have used a blue polish and a rust remover and on the smooth side 1k sand paper.

Anything new to report? I've been anxious to see how this bad boy turned out.