Can i polish my knife?

I have a Blue #1 yanagiba that i would like to do shinier polish on. I have the following at my disposal: synthetic whetstones 400, 1000, 3000, 5000 and 10,000 grits.

How should i go about polishing my knife? Can it be done with what i have (not quite ready for jnat finger stones yet)? Should i get sand paper? What grits?

And yes, i'm aware it's purely for aesthetics. But i just feel it'll be a fun project.

Whetstones are not the right tools for shinier polish.
You can use 100% flat whetstones only to remove very deep scratches. It works on some knives.

If you'd like to get your knife shinier you should do it with sand paper,
I do it up to #5000 and then 000 and 0000 steel wool with car polish cream and at the end with a Dremmel and very soft cotton at the slowest speed.
It gives a mirror finish but maybe you don't have to go that far. The most important is to be patient. Bad polishes are 99% not a skill problem but a patience problem, go slowly between the grits and keep your eyes open.
Coarser sand paper diagonal to the axis of the edge, remove all the previous marks. And from #1000 parallel to the axis of the edge.

How many hours (ballpark) will it take, nutmeg?

it depends on the condition, the size and how shiny you want it.
For a yanagi I would only polish the shinogiji and the mune.

Has anyone here actually used migaki needles and can tell if they're worth it?

LifeByA1000Cuts said:

Has anyone here actually used migaki needles and can tell if they're worth it?

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That is a place you do not want to go,
Kitchen knives are not swords, they are made out of very different materials and are not made to be polished like swords. migakibo are for getting very specific results on sword polishes. For kitchen knives a buffer and rouge will bring a crystal clear polish in 5% of the time it would take to use the needle.

I tend to be one of these persons only finding time for that kind of work late in the evening, so is there a good alternative to using any noisy machine (dremel....) for the buffing?

Fair enough, if you're determined, nothing can stop you, best of luck. Using the needle will require a scratch-free finish on natural stones first and then Ibota powder to prevent the needle from galling the knife. One thing I'm not sure about is weather or not it will work on hardened steel. For swords, the burnishing is only done on the unhardened steel. Namikawa in Tokyo will sell all the supplies you might need.

Something like these pads and a lot of time. Keep rubbing it by hand and it will get to mirror finish.

+10 million for those pads!
I love them and they work for years.

jklip13 said:

Fair enough, if you're determined, nothing can stop you, best of luck. Using the needle will require a scratch-free finish on natural stones first and then Ibota powder to prevent the needle from galling the knife. One thing I'm not sure about is weather or not it will work on hardened steel. For swords, the burnishing is only done on the unhardened steel. Namikawa in Tokyo will sell all the supplies you might need.

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So.. Question. If a person were to have a honyaki tamahagane knife.. At that point, is it just ill-advised from a time investment standpoint? Or is there still risk of doing damage to the knife?

Been watching too many sword polishing videos, and I find it fascinating.. and the closest application I can reasonably find is a knife.

The construction and heat treatments are very different... not all of the concepts cross over

JBroida said:

The construction and heat treatments are very different... not all of the concepts cross over

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Dammit Jon ;((

Would you mind elaborating on it a bit? I'm sure there is a lot of variation in the respective worlds of knife creation and sword creation, but even just a few generalities would be quite interesting!

Omega said:

Dammit Jon ;((

Would you mind elaborating on it a bit? I'm sure there is a lot of variation in the respective worlds of knife creation and sword creation, but even just a few generalities would be quite interesting!

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I know I'm not the droid you're looking for (different Jon).
But here are some of the things you're "tamahagane kitchen knife" would need before the burnishing needle would work.
A hamon that runs the entire length of the Hira. (Typically the Hamon ends 70-80% the length of the Hira)
I'm using the word "Hira" to describe the flat part above the bevel, although this is not really correct on a double beveled knife.
The Hira must have no part of the Hamon touching it, so the full surface can be burnished.
It must also not be finished on wheels, but have a full stone foundation and be totally scratch free.
It's definitely doable but I've never seen a kitchen knife built like that.
The easiest way I would imagine going about this, would be to buy a Tanto, or some sort of Nihonto, and grind an Ura onto the left side, file down the tang and pop it in a handle.
It would be cool but the person who sold sold you the sword would probably never look at you again.

jklip13 said:

I know I'm not the droid you're looking for (different Jon).
But here are some of the things you're "tamahagane kitchen knife" would need before the burnishing needle would work.
A hamon that runs the entire length of the Hira. (Typically the Hamon ends 70-80% the length of the Hira)
I'm using the word "Hira" to describe the flat part above the bevel, although this is not really correct on a double beveled knife.
The Hira must have no part of the Hamon touching it, so the full surface can be burnished.
It must also not be finished on wheels, but have a full stone foundation and be totally scratch free.
It's definitely doable but I've never seen a kitchen knife built like that.
The easiest way I would imagine going about this, would be to buy a Tanto, or some sort of Nihonto, and grind an Ura onto the left side, file down the tang and pop it in a handle.
It would be cool but the person who sold sold you the sword would probably never look at you again.

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Haha I'm happy to have answers from any Jon ;D

Interesting! I actually have two tamahagane honyaki gyutos on their way to me. I believe one of them has a more common knife finish on it, but the other has a full natural stone polish on it. When I asked the maker, he said:
Ara-to, Kongo-to, Binsui, Kaisei, Chu-Nagura, Koma-nagura, Uchigumori, Hazuya and Jizuya was what he used.

From pictures of his work, it does look like he does a much lower hamon that runs the length of the blade.. But I'll have to snap a few pictures when it arrives.

LOL- interesting idea about getting a Tanto or Nihonto. I can't fathom the depths of confliction I'd feel trying to do something like that.. Maybe if I ever make one on my own some day. Or at least one that's not from a Japanese master.

Do sandpaper grits correspond to whetstone grits? ie, 5k whetstone vs 5k sand paper?

So i just start immediately on sandpaper, assuming the metal has never touched a whetstone before since i bought it?

Can stainless steel knives be mirror polished too? Or only carbon steel.

HPoirot said:

Do sandpaper grits correspond to whetstone grits? ie, 5k whetstone vs 5k sand paper?

So i just start immediately on sandpaper, assuming the metal has never touched a whetstone before since i bought it?

Can stainless steel knives be mirror polished too? Or only carbon steel.

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Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I think 3M Wet or Dry Sandpaper goes off one of the FEPA scales or the CAMI scale. Based on the grit intervals I've seen for purchase I'd guess FEPA-P
https://goo.gl/images/fzUgXf

Sure, you can polish stainless. I was working on my Tojiro DP this weekend. At 500-600 grit sandpaper you can already get a blurry reflection back

Are you trying to polish the entire blade, only below the shinogi line, etc.?

Ideally i'd wanna polish the entire blade, as long as it doesn't damage the knife in any way.

Based on that chart, seems like a #5000 FEPA P sandpaper is equivalent to a #3000 sharpton? Wouldn't that mean that i could potentially finish of the polish with a #10k whetstone?

The abrasives cut differently perhaps partly due to the difference in applied media. I would use that chart more to think about relating how low you have to drop in another grit scale to take out X grit of scratches

"interesting idea about getting a Tanto or Nihonto"

I think that community will forget they're not supposed to use theirs for their intended purpose if you get yours with the express intent of modifying it Not speaking for or against that attitude, but the hocho enthusiast's attitude of "so you got something unique and historic ... great, make it work, when's dinner?" seems very different from that of nihonto enthusiasts (judging from what opinions they publicize on such issues )

The book "edge in the kitchen" illustrates how grits correspond to one another eat for stones, papers, etc. for polishing my mnocr (and I've only
Done it a couple times, I started with sanding blocks which I got at Home Depot. They are slightly spongey. I used 120, then like a 240, then I used sandpaper from grits 400, 800, 1000, 2000. You get it pretty shiny. Then you can use 000 steel wool and then 0000 steel wool. And then there are other things
You can buy to put a further shine. If you have a flat strop with compound, you could CAREFULLY lay your knife flat and give it a polish on that for a finish. And I did it on my stainless and it got perttty shiny.

Steel wool is in the end a manual steel-on-steel burnish too? I remember I had some unexpected burnishing effect from completely clogged carborundum stones once...

This is a stainless clad AS. I used only wet/dry paper from Lowes. Progression is 320, 400, 600, 1200, 2k with Flitz. Pretty good mirror polish.

View attachment 35117

This one is a B2 carbon Damascus cladding. I stopped at 1200 with Flitz on this one. It really only takes muscle and time. A good setup makes it way easier.

@dwalker nice work
Do you remove the handles for hand-polishing?

I removed the handle on the Tanaka Damascus. It makes the job much easier for sure. I probably won't do another without first removing the handle. I can try to take a pic of my setup later when I get home. I was able to go from thinning with a 500 grit Shapton glass to finish polish on both sides in about 1.5 to 2 hours.

dwalker said:

I removed the handle on the Tanaka Damascus. It makes the job much easier for sure. I probably won't do another without first removing the handle. I can try to take a pic of my setup later when I get home. I was able to go from thinning with a 500 grit Shapton glass to finish polish on both sides in about 1.5 to 2 hours.

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Thanks for the info. I haven't dabbled with knocking off any of my handles, but I know on some knives, the inconsistency of polish near the tang would be annoying...looking forward to see your setup

So here is my setup. This is not my idea, I borrowed the method from a video I saw on YouTube but can't remember exactly where. Start with a 2x4 and trace the profile of whatever knife you are sanding and cut it out with a jigsaw. It doesn't have to be exact and one profile will work for a number of knives.

You could put it in a vise or clamp it to a bench. In this case it is on my kitchen counter.
Next clamp your blade so it lines up as good as possible with the profile.

I used a 1" square piece of balsa and wrapped the wet/dry paper around it. The last time I did this, it was storming and I didn't want to go out to the shop. I also didn't want to use a smelly cutting oil in the kitchen so I used spray vegetable oil and it worked brilliantly.




As you can see in the last pic, having the edge profile match the block is important to be able to polish all the way to the edge. When you are done with one side, flip the block and do the other. When you have the first polished side down on the block protect it with a piece of soft paper towel. Pretty simple and very effective.

@dwalker cool stuff! Thanks for sharing
Man...I really need to get a clamp

This was my solution, this is a WIP as some other stuff has been taking me away from finishing the knife but I will post once I'm done if that ever happens. I can attest that having the handle in the way is a PITA but I didn't dare try to knock this one off without a back up, it is definitely glued.

@valgard did you separately follow up to polish the part of the blade where the clamp is?