Managing a migaki finish

[Danejah]

*Home cook and amateur sharpener, wondering if anyone out there with more experience has any tricks for keeping a polished finish on a knife looking good. I have a few Toyama SS migaki finish and no matter what I do to keep them from getting scratched, they inevitably end up with little scratches that catch my eye. I am very diligent about how I care for my knives re abrasive things touching it but it just happens. I believe ive seen pictures of knives(Toyama SS) that have been made to look almost matte finished and not as shiny as stock. My guess here is finger stones, ive also heard people talk about a scotchbrite finish but really don't know exactly what's being described. At the end of the day I bought these knives to use so I really don't care and it's purely aesthetic but curious if there are some simple solutions. I do have some Flitz but don't want to make the wrong decision. If finger stones/powder are the preferred could you please provide how to go about sourcing? Thanks!

 

[Heckel7302]

My advice, it’s a tool. It’s going to lose perfection if you use it. Just accept it. Sure, you could try to refinish it with stones or finger stones or sandpaper or scotchbrite, but it’s not going to look like it was new, and might look worse than it does now. Flitz isn’t going to do anything on scratches.

 

[Danejah]

My advice, it’s a tool. It’s going to lose perfection if you use it. Just accept it. Sure, you could try to refinish it with stones or finger stones or sandpaper or scotchbrite, but it’s not going to look like it was new, and might look worse than it does now. Flitz isn’t going to do anything on scratches.

sort of what I figured, but I appreciate the response/outlook and agree

 

[Tekkz]

*Home cook and amateur sharpener, wondering if anyone out there with more experience has any tricks for keeping a polished finish on a knife looking good. I have a few Toyama SS migaki finish and no matter what I do to keep them from getting scratched, they inevitably end up with little scratches that catch my eye. I am very diligent about how I care for my knives re abrasive things touching it but it just happens. I believe ive seen pictures of knives(Toyama SS) that have been made to look almost matte finished and not as shiny as stock. My guess here is finger stones, ive also heard people talk about a scotchbrite finish but really don't know exactly what's being described. At the end of the day I bought these knives to use so I really don't care and it's purely aesthetic but curious if there are some simple solutions. I do have some Flitz but don't want to make the wrong decision. If finger stones/powder are the preferred could you please provide how to go about sourcing? Thanks!

Unless you never use the knife, a polished finish will accumulate small scratches. There's no getting around it. I think eventually most people learn to love their scratches. Kind of like battle scars.

After a couple years when there's a lot of scratches then maybe look into refinishing.

 

[MowgFace]

Stainless cladding gets scratched sometimes by drying them off. Trying to keep them pristine is a practice in futility.

 

[Simply]

My advice, it’s a tool. It’s going to lose perfection if you use it. Just accept it. Sure, you could try to refinish it with stones or finger stones or sandpaper or scotchbrite, but it’s not going to look like it was new, and might look worse than it does now. Flitz isn’t going to do anything on scratches.

+1. It’s no longer just a knife, it’s your knife

 

[labor of love]

Scotchbrite finish is nice but it will scratch just the same. Usually my stainless clad stuff will accumulate scratches just from pulling out and putting into an edge guard, simply wiping the blade down, and just daily slight bumps that may occur.
Whenever it’s time to thin you could always go back over with a sandpaper progression after thinning to atleast get an even finish again but it’s unlikely it will look like brand new Toyama.

 

[Martyfish]

The stock Toyama finish is pretty polished and hence scratch prone. A coarser satin finish will hide scratches much better and you can get such a finish to look just as good as the original finish imo.

I thinned and refinished my 240 gyuto and took a few pictures of the process, including pictures of a satin finish and kasumi finish. There is heaps of info in the captions of the linked album that should hopefully answer any questions you have. If not, feel free to hit me up

https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/martyfishs-makeovers.66507/post-1020439

 

[tostadas]

If the stainless is very soft, it will scratch easily. But that also means you can refinish it just as easily. If you're not going for a fancy kasumi, but just want to maintain the brushed finish, all you really need is some sandpaper up to around 800 grit. Keep your sanding lines parallel and in a single direction, and it's a relatively quick job for just your typical drying towel scuffs.

This is a more extreme example of a knife I refinished for a friend, but the surface finish is the same idea.

 

[Benuser]

If there are serious scratches, they are to be removed by a similar grit as the agent that caused them. But how to find out without starting far to coarse? A trick I got here: start with far to fine and go down to lower grits by small steps until you've found the good one. Treat the entire surface with it, and from there, go to the next finer grits.

 

[Danejah]

The stock Toyama finish is pretty polished and hence scratch prone. A coarser satin finish will hide scratches much better and you can get such a finish to look just as good as the original finish imo.

I thinned and refinished my 240 gyuto and took a few pictures of the process, including pictures of a satin finish and kasumi finish. There is heaps of info in the captions of the linked album that should hopefully answer any questions you have. If not, feel free to hit me up

https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/martyfishs-makeovers.66507/post-1020439

Awesome, thank you for sharing!

 

[Danejah]

If the stainless is very soft, it will scratch easily. But that also means you can refinish it just as easily. If you're not going for a fancy kasumi, but just want to maintain the brushed finish, all you really need is some sandpaper up to around 800 grit. Keep your sanding lines parallel and in a single direction, and it's a relatively quick job for just your typical drying towel scuffs.

This is a more extreme example of a knife I refinished for a friend, but the surface finish is the same idea.

View attachment 285200

That looks like quite the transformation with just some sandpaper, I appreciate the feed back. This is what I was curious about learning. Thank you!

 

[tostadas]

That looks like quite the transformation with just some sandpaper, I appreciate the feed back. This is what I was curious about learning. Thank you!

It was more than sandpaper for the whole knife rework, which also included reprofiling and thinning. But the final surface finish to clean up all the scratches is just sandpaper. If you only need to tidy up the brushed cladding, then it will do what you need.

I want to point out though that if your knife has any sandblast or other similar finish, then the sandpaper remove it.