What is a Mirror Finish

It came up in a thread a while back (with Dave's knife) about what a mirror finish is, and now Mario's thread has raised it again.

What exactly is a mirror finish? No scratches at all? Seeing a reflection? How much of a reflection?

Or is it knowing what brand of camera is seen in the blade reflection? Btw, Mario, is that a Canon S90 or S95?

k.

That, to me, for a knife, is a mirror finish.

A true mirror finish would be hilarious, but completely unreasonable. My father has a shaving mirror made from a piece of stainless steel that he buffed to the point that it looks like a glass mirror.

Something like this, perhaps?

IIRC, last two stones were probably Naniwa SS10K followed by GS16K.

for me seeing a clear to somewhat clear reflection is mirror.

Some of you may have seen the photo by madrookie on FF. He polished this thing till it was a full mirror it was crazy. Stuck like hell I bet!

Seb said:

Something like this, perhaps?

IIRC, last two stones were probably Naniwa SS10K followed by GS16K.

Click to expand...

That's awesome. I'd like to see a video of someone bringing a knife from a normal finish to a mirror like that. Would be quite a long video I'm guessing :happymug:

To get a flawless (or scratchless should I say) mirror finish by hand is quite difficult if not impossible. The final stages are done on electrical buffers with a number of compounds.

M

The mirror finish on Salty's honyaki Mizunos was pretty incredible, and nearly flawless from what I could see. When he first got them he posted a video cutting some beef, I think, and the mirror was so clear it was crazy. I don't think that video is available anymore though, or I would post a link.

EDIT: Here is a vid that Salty did on mirror polishing. This is one of the Miz gyutos, and the mirror isn't quite as nice as it was when he got the knife new, but this is what I would consider a mirror finish. Check the end of the video to see a good shot of the mirror and increase the resolution and get a really good idea of it. The video he originally did when the knife was new was in 1080p if I remember right, and that was a thing of beauty.

[video=youtube;0TREf5Tejgw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TREf5Tejgw[/video]

Thanks, Salty. Very useful. I had some discoloration I didn't like on the beautiful kiritsuki I got from Dave. I did not want a mirror finish, just to remove the discoloration. Done in five minutes.

Keith