Beginning set for *finish* purposes?

So,

stuff's sharp.

What "just a king" and an assorted bric a brac of stones won't do: Give a decent looking finish after thinning or other messing with the blade face.

Is there a recommendable stone set that doesn't break the bank and is great for that purpose? I guess it is about staying with one manufacturer and not omitting some of the high medium grits?

Sandpaper.

XooMG said:

Sandpaper.

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lus1:

Does sandpaper not have a nasty habit of following any unevenness, giving quick results but worsening the condition each time?

LifeByA1000Cuts said:

Does sandpaper not have a nasty habit of following any unevenness, giving quick results but worsening the condition each time?

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Not if you mount it on something solid. Plus, you get the option of backing the paper with something a little softer if you want to blend things better. You also get to change the size and shape of the paper pretty easily, and replacing a sheet is less time consuming than reflattening a stone.

You also get some more options for lubricating if you feel so inclined.

Sandpaper is the tool of trade is you want to prepare a blade for a kasumi finish after some heavy work (thinning) or if the original finish of the knife was corse, or if the knife has some parts that are hollow ground. But the sandpaper itself will NOT give you any contrast between the cladding and the core steel. One option to do that is to sand the blade up to semi-mirror finis (sandpaper grit of at least #2000) and the proceed with fngerstones. The sandig is a lot work though, in particular if (depending on the condition of the blade) you have to start with low grit like #120 or #180

Hehe, still haven't figured out why #240 makes steel superficially more shiny than either #80 or #1000

LifeByA1000Cuts said:

Hehe, still haven't figured out why #240 makes steel superficially more shiny than either #80 or #1000

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I can actually help you with that. 80 is simply very coarse, leave big wide scratches. The wavelength of visible light is at around 500 nm (0.5 um) and that is way less, so the surface scatters the light around. At #240 the situation is a little better, but still far from mirror, just the scattering angles get on average a little smaller and the blade will look brighter. As you move up to finer grits, you need to take very good care that you remove ALL scratches from previous grits. At #240 this may not be quite as obvious (in particular if you sand always in the same direction), but at #1000 the steel will already be semi-polished and every scratch that was not removed before will scream at you. In fact - a quick jump-up to a buffer is often used by guys working on a high polish (on blades or even handles) to check for unremoved scratches.

If the above leaves you scratching the head a bit, than just know that I am working in a company that makes some crazy high end optics and the surface finish and scattered light are of very high importance (even though this topic is not directly my are of expertise)