One big mistake, and many little ones...

I consider myself a fairly good knife sharpener, but it hasn't always been the case. Like many, I have made mistakes during the learning process. The one I could not fix involved wobble of the knife in my hands, where the side brushed up against the stone, and the knife finish was either brightened, or buffed. I have a few of these.

Recently however, I made a big mistake. I have several Suisin Momiji knives, three carbon and one ginsan. Two are the 195 length, both carbon, but one is single bevel and the other the so called “so-momizi” which is double edged. They both look very much alike.

So I am sharpening on Jnats, now on the takashima. With the double bevel knife I am merely doing the edge; with the single bevel I am working the entire bevel. Except. Somehow I was not paying close enough attention (I don’t drink) and sharpened the double bevel as though it was single bevel. Both sides, including refined ura-oshi sharpening.

Here is the unfortunate result:
http://www.liftmarketing.com/mistake1.jpg
http://www.liftmarketing.com/mistake2.jpg

So I wonder what can be done to fix this knife, and, to a lessor extent, the worst cases of my previous mistakes? I have sent knives to sharpeners before, but these knifes are sharpened quite well! Can they be polished on a machine? Or, is there something I can do at home?

Wonderful knife, in perfect working condition. Just not very pretty, for now...

I would suggest some Micro mesh pads and some sort of compound like Semmichrome, it is a little more aggressive then Flitz

Sadly, my Harley dealer no longer carries Semmichrome. They have their own brand now, which I got. But won't that just put scratches on the entire knife...?

Just checked: Semichrome and micro mesh pads are available at a Woodcraft in my city! Any advice on the pads to get...?

the pads come in a range of grits in a variety pack, and go all the way up to 12k, I use semmichrome on my knives and it doesn't scratch up the knife at all

So, please help me out with the basic concept here. I have a shiny knife with some buff scratch patterns on it. So, I am to further abrade this with sanding pads? Then apply polish? And this is going to make the buff part shiny again...?

As the scratch pattern becomes finer it will be less visible. Polishing leaves very fine scratches - you just can't see them.

use the pads to buff out the scratches, start low I guess, and then use the polish, to clean it up

I am not an expert, but my experience is you have to make all the scratches parallel to get a mirror polish. Work one side a time, clamp the blade down to something flat and work from base to tip with progressive grits of micromesh pads. If the scratches are deep you may have to use some sandpaper as well. Once you have worked through the micromesh grits it should be quite mirror like if you take your time at each grit. It takes some time and elbow grease just working in one direction base to tip. You could then buff it with semichrome or flitz to get it even more mirror polished. I use a little buffing wheel attached to an electric drill with flitz in my home workshop and have had good results.

There are some you tube videos of mirror polishing blades that you could check out as well.

Let us know how it goes.

Just be glad it's carbon and not stainless clad, SS is a b*&ch to polish.

Uh, Dave Martell...?

Enjoy the knife, use it...forget about cosmetics...we are talking about a tool to use not a damn car with an insurance value.

If it's a carbon monosteel forget the mirror polish. Just put a heavy patina on it. I would treat it before with coarse ScotchBrite to open the surface a bit to it. I don't see how a mirror finish can benefit to a kitchen knife.

Sorry if I did not communicate well. Not looking for a mirror finish — just want to remove the patches of buff scratches where I hit it with the stones.

You know, I have heard that one about the tools before. No offense, but in my experience, the best craftsmen I have worked with had the best looking tools. They took pride in their work, and took pride in their tools. It's the ones with the crappy looking, dirty tools that you need to watch out for.

I learned to cook years ago, with Sabatier carbon knives. Taught me to clean my knife after each use, and to keep them clean, sharp, and looking good. Today, my knives cost hundreds of dollars, each. I am going to take the extra effort to preserve them, as I would any of my tools...

Benuser said:

If it's a carbon monosteel forget the mirror polish. Just put a heavy patina on it. I would treat it before with coarse ScotchBrite to open the surface a bit to it. I don't see how a mirror finish can benefit to a kitchen knife.

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Not much benefit to mammoth tooth or mokume ferrules either...it's OK if stuff is pretty though. To hold a beautiful thing is a joy.

some people like to show their stuff off, and a mirror polish is cool to them, and to some people it is impractical

Make sure you do enough work at the lower grits to get ALL the scratches out. I just got all the to 5k and saw that I still hadn't gotten the deepest ones out. It's hard to see them through the lower grit scratch but when you get close to mirror they really stand out. Wine cork makes a good tool to hold paper and apply grit from stones.

low and slow, like braising, my friend :doublethumbsup:

To avoid any sticking a satin finish is preferable to a mirror one. It's very easy to get a very smooth, clean patina. A patina is just so much easier to maintain than a mirror finish.

Benuser said:

To avoid any sticking a satin finish is preferable to a mirror one. It's very easy to get a very smooth, clean patina. A patina is just so much easier to maintain than a mirror finish.

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Good answer. If only he had asked the right question.:groucho:

Back to your original post, I misunderstood. You are not looking for a mirror polish apparently. It is difficult to tell from the pictures what level of finish you are aiming for, but the general principle stands: abrade the whole surface with some sort of grit (scotch bright pad, 800 grit sandpaper, a low grit micromesh pad, etc.) to get parallel tiny scratches from base to tip until you achieve the level of satin finish you are looking for while getting rid of the accidentally buffed areas. At that point you can force a patina or let nature create one for you.

And as a home coodk, I agree it is enjoyable to work with beautiful tools, even if my knife skills are not at the master level.

Can I clear this up? The knife did not have a mirror finish to begin with; just the typical slightly bright, as opposed to dull, finish most non-rustic knives have: hon kasumi. Think Shigefusa, Konosuke, Mizuno, etc. I don't like mirror finish knives, nor do I like etched and Damascus knives. Just me.

I hear you with the benefits of a patina. Also not for me, as the one who polishes his copper pots after using them. Better food slippage just sounds like a lazy man's excuse, sorry.

All I want to do is make the knife look like it did before I screwed it up. Maybe the best bet is to send it to someone who knows what they are doing.

designdog said:

All I want to do is make the knife look like it did before I screwed it up. Maybe the best bet is to send it to someone who knows what they are doing.

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I suggest you do just that as I think you are unlikely to a particular result on your first attempt. For that matter get an example of the finish that the expert will apply as you might not like it either; you could spend a fortune getting a hand rubbed finish applied only to discover that you don't like it and would have preferred a simple buffed one. (Incidentally to my untrained eye the original bright finish looks like a coarse finish that his been buffed for some shine while leaving some underlying grain.)