Finish and Polish for Knives

I saw the thread about bamboo for knife handles and it reminded me that I was going to ask about handle material. I've never been much of a hunter, but I have considered taking it up to supply some food and cut back on a grocery bill if possible. Since I missed our hunter safety courses this year, I mentioned to a guy at work that I would like to have some deer meat. Well, he mentioned it to our maintenance supervisor who showed up with two deer shoulders and a ham for me yesterday. This got me thinking. Could I use the bone for knife handle material? I know a respirator of descent quality is in order to protect from particles and I'll have to buy one. But is it us…

I bought myself a set of Gesswein polishing stones to try them as a replacement of sandpaper for polishing the blades. When they arrived, they were of a standard rectangular shape. However, in all youtube videos demonstrating their use one end of the stone was beveled on one or both sides. As a result, you would get a contact patch of a specific size and would have to hold the stone at an angle to the blade to apply it to. I hope that makes sense. My question is - how does one go about creating this bevel? Is there a preferred way or should I just take it to the grinder or a file? Thank you! Luka

A couple different finishes on my Tomahawks ,both were put in Muriatic acid for cleaning. One has Pema Blue (gun blue) as a finish .The other was sprayed with Hydrogen Peroxide after coming out of the Muriatic acid. I 'am not sure I like the Rust type finish??Tthe rust one is Wrought Iron. I thought I would ask you guys your opinions ?? And also what type of finish you use?? Thanks

Question for the pros. When you are hot bluing your damascus blades, do you leave your blades in a highly polished state for the bluing process or do you etch with acid first and leave it as a dull finish for the bluing process? My billet consists on mild steel and 15N20. If it is highly polished for the bluing, will the 15N20 remain mirror-like and the mild will take on the color of the bluing yet remain polished looking? Thank-you.

Not sure but I figure Finish and Polish for Forks goes here as well. Had a piece of twisted 15n20/1075 bar laying around so I made a traditional two-tine fork by hot cutting one end and drawing out the other for the handle. Drawing out the tines was a very delicate procedure due to the inclination of the low layer laminate to split. Had to forge weld one tip to get it back to one piece. Did a ferric chloride etch followed by a 5 hour soak in Nescafe (decaf of course).

Is a WD40 soak recommended after a coffee etch? If so I presume it’s not a good safe procedure?

Hello. I'm finishing up my second kitchen knife. It's made out of AEB-L and I wanted to apply a satin to it, so I sanded one part down to 1000 grit, then covered it with a masking tape, flipped it over and did the other side. When I took the tape off, I discovered white spots on the blade that you can see in the picture. I tried to sand them off (but I didn't go lower than 400 grit) and wash them off with acetone, but to no avail. What can they be, any ideas? The only thing I can think of is they are gouges left by some large steel crumbs, but why are they pits and not scratches and how did they make it so deep under the masking tape? If anyone has any suggestions, …

I've noticed there's two major types of bench-top belt sanders. Ones like this: http://www.amazon.co...13938725&sr=1-4 and ones like this: http://www.amazon.co...13938927&sr=1-3 In many of the books I've read, they recommend at least 2 inches wide and I think 48 inches long. I don't understand what the benefit of a longer belt is and which type would be more appropriate for grinding/sharpening knives. The 1" wide (first one) has the benefit of there being a table attached to rest the blade on and has a longer belt, while the second is a lot wider.

I'm making some kitchen knives with 1080 steel and want to use a bluing sort of process to prevent rust. Is there a good food-safe way to bue or am I looking for a forced patina? Recipes would be greatly appreciated either way!

I came across this post from Dan Prendergast about "glazing wheels": https://www.instagram.com/p/B0Bpd0ZHucl/ In his words, I tried researching the term, and I did find a greaseless finishing compound that is abrasive grain suspended in hide glue, to be used like buffing rouge. Does anybody have experience with this? I'd be interested in trying it out, I'd probably want some sort of guard around the wheel though.

I want to polish a piece of stainless to an absolute mirror finish roughly .1 micron... I found diamond polishing paste but unsure how you use it. Do you put it on a buffing/polishing wheel? Microfiber cloth and hand polish? Special machine?? I was also looking at Mylar polishing sheets that go down to .5 micron. I assume you use these to hand polish.... Do you use them like wet sandpaper?? Thanks. Hillbilly

Hi. I started a build of a full-tang kwaiken, and this is the first full-tang knife I made that I'm planning to etch in ferric chloride. I was wondering what's the best way to approach handle sanding. On a regular (non-etched) knife, I would shape the handles, glue them on and sand them along with the part of the tang sandwiched between the scales. However, if it's etched and I do this, I'll end up scratching the etching off. So far, the two approaches I thought of are: 1) Glue handles with a weak glue, shape them, sand them, take them off, etch the knife, glue them back properly. 2) Glue them properly on an etched knife, sand them along with the tang, …

I notice some new lasers, designed for paint prep, that remove rust and oil and even loose paint. Has anyone here tried one yet? They look amazing in the videos! At around the $200 or $300 price level for the cheaper ones... they seem accessible for small shops. It looks to me like they might be extremely useful on projects with complex surfaces! I think they might also work to remove scale! I’d like to hear advice from anyone who has tried one out.

An old friend has some very old hand made rusty knives for butchering a beef carcass. They also have a couple of cleavers, and a rusted saw. They asked me how to remove the rust so they can butcher a cow that has been cut up and has been hanging. They are concerned about contaminating the meet by using rusted knives. They thought vinegar could be used and then some steel wool. I have not been involved in knife making at all and couldn't advise them. Any suggestion would be appreciated. They told me that the knifes and cleavers and saw have not been used for at least a couple of years and that is why they are rusted. The few knives they showed me appear t…

I'm currently finish grinding a 6" kitchen knife. I don't mind hand sanding itself, but I find that constantly changing paper gets old pretty quickly. Does anyone have experience using diamond stones for hand sanding? They're rigid and flat, and the a good quality stone shouldn't have any issue with the grit wearing out. They're available in a fairly wide range of grits as well. I haven't seen this discussed, and hopefully it would save a little time and money in the long run, if not just making it a little more pleasant. Decent sized stones would also serve double duty for sharpening. I'm considering getting a set of DMT "credit card" sharpeners to test with a rigid…

I've been working on a blade for my wife & found some very nice birdseye maple today for the scales. She loves the colour blue. So id like to dye the wood, but I've never done this before. I like a natural finish myself. I've been doing some interweb searching for this. But everything I'm coming up with involves acid of one form or another. Which she'd object to. Does anyone here have a formula or recipe for dying maple with a more natural method. Thanks for any advice.

Short story of me. I started making knive by material removal about 8 yrs ago. Split with girlfriend and lost my shop 4 years ago. Stuff sat in boxes till last year, I set up shop in my new garage. Started removal knives again and dove head first into blacksmithing again. History out of the way onto pin discussion, I’ve made bunches on mosaic pins but want to find the pin stock with shapes. I’ve been looking since I started marking knives 8 yrs ago. I don’t know if I’m just garbage at googling or what but I can’t find stock anywhere. I can find complete pins but I want to make everything in-house. This is what I’m looking for the shapes in the center of the p…

Greetings! First time poster here. I got into knifemaking about a year ago, have been making them after work. This is my sixth knife, that I made for my mom. In this knife it was the first time that I put multiple brass spacers with wood between them. During the final handle polish (I went up to 1000 grit), it turned out that sandpaper works more aggressively on the wood then on the brass and so I got slight ridges on the handle where the brass is. Are there any tips or tricks on how to make sure that they are even with wood around them? Thank you! Luka

I’m going to be making some Micarta for the handles on a couple bottle openers. This will be my first attempt at making it I will be making both a traditional as well as a rag style. Does anyone here make their own ?

I knew it was gonna be a slow day at work today, so I brought some scales and a checkering file. Never used one before, thought Id give it a try. Handles are for a set of 4 pattern welded fishing knives going to my Wife’s dad and 3 brothers. Micarta, sanded up to ~ 300 grit (A45 micron). Since they are for wet-work, you want some grip. I tried going in 2 directions on a test piece, I’m not talented (read patient) enough... yet... so single direction it is! Lol I will assemble then sharpen tonight I hope.

I am working on floorplans/ layouts for the new building, and am kind of leaning twords wanting a separate room for grinding. While I only have 3 at the moment I will likely have a half dozen, possibly more belt grinders shortly. All my scribbling on graph paper it looks like a 14x18 would be about right. With two buffers and 4-6 grinders and a bench or two. Anybody who has gone this route have any advice?

I don’t know if this is the proper place to post this, but I am looking at buying a new hand wand for an electro etcher and was wondering what the difference between the screen and carbon block wands. I have been trying to find which one to go with for both deep etching and surface etching. Which one would be better to go with?

Hi Folks, I've got a little problem. I made a pattern welded steel of 1045 and an old file. So there are no other alloys worth mentioning in it (except of carbon of course). It's the first try and the package welded perfectly. The first etch in ferric chloride for 10 min showed a nice pattern. But after heat treating there's just a glimpse of a pattern after 1 hour of etching. As far as my experience goes (but with high alloy steel) the pattern becomes more intensive after hardening. Anyone with some more experience in pattern welded steels out of "pure carbon steel"? I just don't want to ruin the blade by etching it too long.

Hello everyone. I've been trying to get some ferric chloride set up for etching some damascus I've been working one. I bought some muriatic acid from home depot and started the process of turning it to ferric chloride but it seems to be leaking through the PVC pipe I have to hold it. I've looked around and I didn't see anyone else come up with a similar issue. I'm storing it in a 4" pvc cutoff with an end cap on the bottom. I thought maybe the acid was eating through the glue but the cap is still stuck on there well and I don't see any holes in the pvc. What do you all use to store hold your acid when etching?

I’m hand sanding the first knife I have made from D2 and at 320 grit I’m starting to see an odd pattern in the steel. It almost looks like what you see on galvanized steel, but smaller crystal boundaries and less regular. I don’t know what it is. I’m planning on going to a mirror finish, but if this is what D2 just looks like, it may be a wasted effort to keep hand sanding. I just don’t have any hands on experience with this steel to know... just what I could research. any ideas? Because it might matter, it might not, my heat treat (evenheat oven) was this: A 15 minute soak in a SS foil wrap at 1850 F. Then took out and aluminum plate quen…