Pre polish stone progression

[Bico Doce]

I’m looking for some insight on stones you using for pre polish work. Right now I like using a chosera 400, 800 to prep the bevel but I’m having a hard time finding the right stone follow that up. My kohetsu 2k seems to introduce deeper scratches than I would like so I feel compelled to use a chosera 3k to clean it up. Going from the chosera 800 to 3k is a bit of a stretch.

Help me out here and tell me which stones you like to use before hitting it with the jnats - ideally I’m looking for a killer 2k stone

Thanks!

 

[Bico Doce]

@ABazes

 

[Greasylake]

Lately I've been doing most of my repairs with a gesshin 220 and sg500, then using a gesshin 400 with diamond slurry to start, then moving onto morihei 1k with diamond slurry, gesshin 6k then jnats to finish. I keep my gesshin stones permasoaked so they're pretty muddy and easy to work with for polishing.

 

[ABazes]

I find the Shapton Pro 2k to be pretty aggressive and consistent, with good feedback.

 

[jedy617]

I'm looking for the same exact thing. I go from my chosera 800 before my first jnat which is a soft hakka in the 2-4k range. I do have a chosera 3k but I usually skip over that and leave it for the edges.

 

[Benuser]

I’m looking for some insight on stones you using for pre polish work. Right now I like using a chosera 400, 800 to prep the bevel but I’m having a hard time finding the right stone follow that up. My kohetsu 2k seems to introduce deeper scratches than I would like so I feel compelled to use a chosera 3k to clean it up. Going from the chosera 800 to 3k is a bit of a stretch.

Help me out here and tell me which stones you like to use before hitting it with the jnats - ideally I’m looking for a killer 2k stone

Thanks!

I'm a bit surprised about the jump from the Chosera 800 to the 3k being problematic. Not so in my experience, but I must admit I'm rarely looking for eliminating completely all previous scratches. The 3k leaves a final result around 4k JIS, and is often my last stone in a progression.
You may consider the Chosera 2k. A fantastic stone on itself. Starts a bit aggressive, hard, lots of feedback, not the silky feeling you get with the 3k. You will feel any unevenness. End result about 3k JIS.

 

[Bico Doce]

I'm a bit surprised about the jump from the Chosera 800 to the 3k being problematic. Not so in my experience, but I must admit I'm rarely looking for eliminating completely all previous scratches. The 3k leaves a final result around 4k JIS, and is often my last stone in a progression.
You may consider the Chosera 2k. A fantastic stone on itself. Starts a bit aggressive, hard, lots of feedback, not the silky feeling you get with the 3k. You will feel any unevenness. End result about 3k JIS.

Thanks for the insight here. I would not say it’s problematic but takes a bit longer than I would like. I was thinking a good 2k option would set me up for success to go straight to a numata (poor man’s aizu). But definitely doable to go from 800 to 3k

 

[ethompson]

Depends on the finisher in question and what approach you want to take. If you work clean enough, you could jump from a really tidy 1k to something like a coarse uchigumori. It’ll require patience buts it doable. If I’m interested in getting a project done in a hurry or just want to move onto natural finishers I’ll take it up to 6k synthetic before making the switch. I don’t think the stone choice matters so much as working with a clean geometry and being diligent with your scratch erasure.

The range you’re looking at 1-3k is in my opinion the trickiest in terms of polish. It’s fairly easy when going from coarse to medium to see if you’re erasing scratches and harder finer stones tend to reveal your sins from the middle as well. But going from medium coarse (800 or so) to medium fine (2-3k) requires careful inspection and practice to leave a surface clean enough for finishing work.

Having used a variety of stones in this area, I find the JKI Gesshin soakers to be my preferred choice. But I also have and use the shapton glass in 1, 2, & 4k. Both setups work - despite feeling different and leaving very different finishes.

If you wanted to stick with naturals, I have yet to meet a clad knife that didn’t polish up nicely going natsuya > ikarashi / Aizu > uchi > fine suita

 

[Benuser]

P.S. The Choseras 400 and 800 deliver an end result of about 600 and 1200 JIS (only slightly coarser than a Shapton Pro 2k).

 

[HumbleHomeCook]

What I am finding for myself, is that I'm a pretty good thinner and a pretty good polisher but I am not pretty good at polishing after thinning.

I find that once I do some thinning, I tend to impart a fair bit of scratches and it isn't really stone dependent. It's me. I have been focusing on less pressure but perhaps I just lack the patience. So, those scratches carry over and I find I never really address all of them.

Admittedly, I'm still new to polishing as I've always just focused on performance so maybe it will round out with time. Unless I end up shrugging and moving on.

 

[Bico Doce]

Admittedly, I'm still new to polishing as I've always just focused on performance so maybe it will round out with time. Unless I end up shrugging and moving on.

Im a fellow noob to polishing as well and chasing those scratches seems to be the most time consuming aspect of the whole process. Im currently working on a knife where Im alternating scratch directions so I can easily see what is left from the previous stone and it is taking an eternity to go thru the progression. Not sure the juice is worth the squeeze but Im just think of it as practice.

 

[user 16756]

The problem is that we want to do things inverted: I want to spend time on my expensive finishers that are a joy to use, and as little time as possible on my synths that apply the foundation.

Unfortunately, the way it works if you do it right is you spend the most time shaping, a little less cleaning up the damage you did during shaping, and then the least amount of time on finishers.

 

[Bico Doce]

The problem is that we want to do things inverted: I want to spend time on my expensive finishers that are a joy to use, and as little time as possible on my synths that apply the foundation.

Unfortunately, the way it works if you do it right is you spend the most time shaping, a little less cleaning up the damage you did during shaping, and then the least amount of time on finishers.

Exactly this. Why did I blow $700 on a jnat when I end up spending all of my time on $70 synthetics?? I wont lie, somehow I thought expensive jnats would magically take care of all those scratches

 

[ethompson]

The problem is that we want to do things inverted: I want to spend time on my expensive finishers that are a joy to use, and as little time as possible on my synths that apply the foundation.

Unfortunately, the way it works if you do it right is you spend the most time shaping, a little less cleaning up the damage you did during shaping, and then the least amount of time on finishers.

Yep, this right here is a fundamental truth of polishing projects.

 

[ethompson]

Exactly this. Why did I blow $700 on a jnat when I end up spending all of my time on $70 synthetics?? I wont lie, somehow I thought expensive jnats would magically take care of all those scratches

A lesson most of us deep down the rabbit hole learn from experience! The reality is quite the opposite - expensive Jnats tend to be of the harder and finer variety and will highlight rather than hide all the scratches from previous stones.

That said, the first time you get a really, really clean steel surface that allows you to truly use your expensive finishers to their full capacity and you see the detail and iridescence those nice stones can produce it'll be worth it. Nothing quite like the reward of the purples, yellows, and blues you see refracting off a highly refined natural stone kasumi on hardened steel or the super fine grain structure in a cladding.

 

[Alder26]

I find that the Naniwa aotoshi 2k is the best stone for cleaning up 1k scratches. Really pleasant to use, decent cutting power, and can polish the core steel up 4k if you work it long enough.

 

[Pie]

All of it requires a large amount of trial and error I find. Synthetics have the speed and consistency, which (I’ve had to really convince myself) are the path to a clean prep.

I’ve actually taken to going up to a relatively clean 3k and then stepping all the way back down to iyoto or binsui to introduce the contrast again recently. Call it somewhat of a breakthrough in defeating my stubbornness of “why can’t my naturals do it”.

My prefinisher scan eat those scratches, but have a hard time cleaning anything lower than 1k well.

 

[MowgFace]

The problem is that we want to do things inverted: I want to spend time on my expensive finishers that are a joy to use, and as little time as possible on my synths that apply the foundation.

Unfortunately, the way it works if you do it right is you spend the most time shaping, a little less cleaning up the damage you did during shaping, and then the least amount of time on finishers.

100% This.

I think we all learned the same lesson with Edge sharpening. Coarse stone was the last one for me to get, and now the stone i spend the most amount of time on.

 

[Pie]

you see the detail and iridescence those nice stones can produce it'll be worth it. Nothing quite like the reward of the purples, yellows, and blues you see refracting off a highly refined natural stone kasumi on hardened steel or the super fine grain structure in a cladding.

Yeahhhh this is the true endpoint. Pure absolute mirrors lack character imo.

 

[jedy617]

I just grabbed a Suehiro Debado 180 to help with my pre-polishing. On my last 2/3 projects I have been using sandpaper up to 1k grit, and then going to my chosera 800. No matter what I still have lots of low spots that I need to use fingerstones/powder to get at. Hopefully this will help.

I'm thinking of going the Suehiro 180, shapton glass 320 to remove scratches, and then chosera 800. Hopefully the gap from the 320-800 is fine, I guess I could buy another stone to bridge them but I'd rather not.

@Bico Doce I'm with you, I have a nice jnat collection right now but I'm frustrated I am not getting the results I want. Freaking low spots and scratches are driving me crazy.

 

[Matt Jacobs]

delete

 

[Bico Doce]

I just grabbed a Suehiro Debado 180 to help with my pre-polishing. On my last 2/3 projects I have been using sandpaper up to 1k grit, and then going to my chosera 800. No matter what I still have lots of low spots that I need to use fingerstones/powder to get at. Hopefully this will help.

I'm thinking of going the Suehiro 180, shapton glass 320 to remove scratches, and then chosera 800. Hopefully the gap from the 320-800 is fine, I guess I could buy another stone to bridge them but I'd rather not.

@Bico Doce I'm with you, I have a nice jnat collection right now but I'm frustrated I am not getting the results I want. Freaking low spots and scratches are driving me crazy.

I have found that sometimes with knives where I know they came with good bevels free of low spots, I end up with scratches that just to dont seem to erase as I work on a stone. Im learning in those cases i may need to change the orientation of the knife and the motion of the knife. Its not a low spot per se Im just not contacting it with the technique/angle Im using

 

[jedy617]

I have found that sometimes with knives where I know they came with good bevels free of low spots, I end up with scratches that just to dont seem to erase as I work on a stone. Im learning in those cases i may need to change the orientation of the knife and the motion of the knife. Its not a low spot per se Im just not contacting it with the technique/angle Im using

Yep I only go heel to tip. I watched a great Instagram video from Milan last night that said for low spots it can be really helpful doing low grit and going edge to spine/perpendicular. Gonna try that next time

 

[ethompson]

You definitely have far greater control over where metal is being removed if your strokes are orthogonal to the edge, as indicated by that Milan video. With wide-bevels or single bevels this is especially important in terms of setting clean geometry. This angle of attack tends to be less stable so you have to be very careful with your strokes, but it allows for much crisper geometry and more precise abrasion as compared to, say, a 45* angle that I think is probably typical.

Working in small sections final polishing is best done with the strokes nearly parallel to the edge in my experience as your ability to hold a precise angle is so much higher with more metal in contact with the stone.

Nothing substitutes working a blades on stones from very coarse grits (220 or less) and removing low spots before moving to 400 or 500 grit stones though.

you can still get at concave portions of the blades (read the ura) or small low spots with convex bench stones though.

 

[Heckel7302]

A lesson most of us deep down the rabbit hole learn from experience! The reality is quite the opposite - expensive Jnats tend to be of the harder and finer variety and will highlight rather than hide all the scratches from previous stones.

That said, the first time you get a really, really clean steel surface that allows you to truly use your expensive finishers to their full capacity and you see the detail and iridescence those nice stones can produce it'll be worth it. Nothing quite like the reward of the purples, yellows, and blues you see refracting off a highly refined natural stone kasumi on hardened steel or the super fine grain structure in a cladding.

I just end up giving up with my expensive jnats when things aren't magically perfect and bail out with some stone powder. One of these days I'll get there.

 

[jedy617]

Ditto. If I may share some pics, I just finished this 5 minutes ago.

Progression was sandpaper up to 1k, chosera 800, 3k, Hakka Tomae, Hakka suita, then I used dried mud, some finger stones and uchi powder. Knife is Tanaka aogami super. Really happy how it turned out overall, but I know underneath there are still a decent amount of scratches and low spots I didn't deal with. Using the dried mud was a game changer.

 

[MowgFace]

Holy carbon migration Batman!

Damascus, or just banding on the cladding?

 

[jedy617]

Holy carbon migration Batman!

Damascus, or just banding on the cladding?

That's just banding! Really cool to see all that activity on a "standard" iron clad y. Tanaka

 

[Benuser]

I'm thinking of going the Suehiro 180, shapton glass 320 to remove scratches, and then chosera 800. Hopefully the gap from the 320-800 is fine, I guess I could buy another stone to bridge them but I'd rather not.

Nothing to worry about with going from SG320 to Chosera 800. Raising a bit of mud will help.

 

[jedy617]

Nothing to worry about with going from SG320 to Chosera 800. Raising a bit of mud will help.

Awesome thanks