Finally figuring out hand sanding...

After watching Nick Wheeler's hand sanding 101 video a few times and forcing myself to be patient and slow down, I've been able to get a nifty finish on my knives.

Looks great. What is your finish grit?

Mrmnms said:

Looks great. What is your finish grit?

Click to expand...

Currently I am stopping at 800 grit as it provides a nice balance between polished and satin, but only time will tell with how it reacts to cutting food. This knife is another petty that will be my Wife's, so I'll provide some feedback and finished pictures when ready.

This picture will give you a good idea of what the 800 grit finish looks like. The top knife was finished with a scotchbrite belt, but you can see that I didn't finish sanding each grit out due to the vertical scratch marks still visible. The bottom two blades have both been hand sanding completely to 800 grit, which in my opinion is an absolutely beautiful finish.

That looks great. I have to say, I have been trying to hand polish a lot of knives lately, and I have a lot of questions myself. I started at 220 and went up to 2k, but I still have spots I am unhappy with. I am also dealing with how to get a consistent scratch pattern. Lately I have been using a rock hard felt wrapper in sand paper to give more consistent application. With that said, I have several knives now with inconsistent scratch patterns that need to be fixed -- depending upon my motivation.

k.

How long would you estimate that it takes you to hand sand a hunter sized blade to 800?

One more post and Pete gets to 2000 posts. waiting.

k.

Do you think a vibrating hand sander would give an acceptable finish for a daily driver?

ecchef said:

Do you think a vibrating hand sander would give an acceptable finish for a daily driver?

Click to expand...

nope, unless you want circle patterns that is?


Looks great Pete:thumbsup:
dry sanding i guess?

Pete, that looks GREAT!!

Looks good Pete!

On a related note, I have a mirror polished Honyaki, and I'm not a huge fan of how the finish feels. If I want to take it back to a satin finish can I just go straight to 800 grit, or will I need to start lower 320ish and work back up.

mr drinky said:

That looks great. I have to say, I have been trying to hand polish a lot of knives lately, and I have a lot of questions myself. I started at 220 and went up to 2k, but I still have spots I am unhappy with. I am also dealing with how to get a consistent scratch pattern. Lately I have been using a rock hard felt wrapper in sand paper to give more consistent application. With that said, I have several knives now with inconsistent scratch patterns that need to be fixed -- depending upon my motivation.

k.

Click to expand...

This is what I use…

I made a sanding stick out of 1/4" O1 stock that I realized would never make a good knife. I hollow ground a channel in the center, which helps me hold the sand paper and ground in a radius on all edges. I will be making another one out of either micarta or wood sometime in the future to make a more light weight tool. I use this tool just the way it is with quality sand paper and work the flats. Each grit I sand in a different direction in order to ensure that I've removed the old scratches from the previous grit.



When I go to finish sand since my grinding skills are rather terrible, I use a small piece of spongey kitchen shelf liner, which helps blend everything together and creates a slight convex.



Lastly, if you have spots that you are not happy with, then that means you either drop down a grit and make sure to remove them or stick with what you have and keep sanding until they go away. What I finally realized is that hand sanding is a very time consuming process and it takes patience and dedication. Also, you need to be looking at the finish in different lights to ensure no scratches remain.

JMJones said:

How long would you estimate that it takes you to hand sand a hunter sized blade to 800?

Click to expand...

The hunter and the petty each took around 3 hours total starting at a 220 grit belt finish, then 320, 500 and finally 800 grit sand paper.

Sabaki said:

nope, unless you want circle patterns that is?


Looks great Pete:thumbsup:
dry sanding i guess?

Click to expand...

I use WD-40 in combination with Rhynowhet by Redline sand paper.

Von blewitt said:

Looks good Pete!

On a related note, I have a mirror polished Honyaki, and I'm not a huge fan of how the finish feels. If I want to take it back to a satin finish can I just go straight to 800 grit, or will I need to start lower 320ish and work back up.

Click to expand...

You should be fine dropping it down to 800 grit, no need to start with anything coarser unless you have scratches created by something coarser.

I have that vise shown in the pic---it really helps. Holds blades with or without handles, and flips from one side to the other in a few seconds.

Awesome, Pete.

stereo.pete said:

The hunter and the petty each took around 3 hours total starting at a 220 grit belt finish, then 320, 500 and finally 800 grit sand paper.

Click to expand...

I have found that using a 40 durometer rubber contact wheel on your grinder and also a variety of edm stones gets hand sanding time reduced by about 85 percent.

JMJones said:

I have found that using a 40 durometer rubber contact wheel on your grinder and also a variety of edm stones gets hand sanding time reduced by about 85 percent.

Click to expand...

SOLD! I would love to hear more, please elaborate sir! In terms of the contact wheel, I do my grinding on a flat platen so I'm not sure that would help. What EDM stones are you referencing?

Thanks,

Pete

Norton said:

I have that vise shown in the pic---it really helps. Holds blades with or without handles, and flips from one side to the other in a few seconds.

Click to expand...

That vise is exactly what I have been looking for--where to find one and what is it called?

Cheers

stereo.pete said:

This is what I use…

I made a sanding stick out of 1/4" O1 stock that I realized would never make a good knife. I hollow ground a channel in the center, which helps me hold the sand paper and ground in a radius on all edges. I will be making another one out of either micarta or wood sometime in the future to make a more light weight tool. I use this tool just the way it is with quality sand paper and work the flats. Each grit I sand in a different direction in order to ensure that I've removed the old scratches from the previous grit.

When I go to finish sand since my grinding skills are rather terrible, I use a small piece of spongey kitchen shelf liner, which helps blend everything together and creates a slight convex.

Lastly, if you have spots that you are not happy with, then that means you either drop down a grit and make sure to remove them or stick with what you have and keep sanding until they go away. What I finally realized is that hand sanding is a very time consuming process and it takes patience and dedication. Also, you need to be looking at the finish in different lights to ensure no scratches remain.

Click to expand...

Thanks. That's helpful. And it never occurred to me to switch directions.

k.

stereo.pete said:

I use WD-40 in combination with Rhynowhet by Redline sand paper.

Click to expand...

:thumbsup:

Nick Wheeler has also posted some really good videos showing how to sculpt and finish handles.
I don't even make knives but I have subscribed to his YouTube Channel.
When I watch his videos I usually learn something I can use with other projects.

stereo.pete said:

SOLD! I would love to hear more, please elaborate sir! In terms of the contact wheel, I do my grinding on a flat platen so I'm not sure that would help. What EDM stones are you referencing?

Thanks,

Pete

Click to expand...

I learned this from Jim Batson at a hammer in, he said this technique is what "made him a knife maker". Basically once you are done your flat grinding, you use the same grit belt you ended with on the platen and put it on the contact wheel. You then grind in the opposite direction of your grinding scratches, the same way you hand sand. The trick is that the 40 durometer wheel is softer and contours slightly to the blade and just erases the other scratches. Then you go through the grit progression of your choice on the wheel. Each grit takes maybe three passes. Then finish with your final grit for hand sanding and it looks like a fine hand finish with much less work. There are two issues with this method, first it flattens out your tip, so just leave some extra and profile the tip at the end. Second you cant go over the plunge area because it will wash it out. For this use edm stones that start about the final grit you use when flat grinding. These stones polish much much faster than sand paper. Use the stones to erase your flat grinding marks near the plunge and then finish with sandpaper the way you are currently doing. Good luck.

I got my edm stones at congress tools online. There are a ton available but they should all work for this application. I spent maybe 20 bucks and they have lasted for years. I got 220, 400 and 600

Thanks Mr. Jones!