All is good, she didn't realize knives like these aren't suitable for bone work. Jedy did a fantastic job fixing it up; didn't know the result is still pretty tall since that was a good 3-4mm of material to remove
Show your work! Uchigumori and co...
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Just got my first set of uchi fingerstones. Just to bring out the contrast and really make the most of one, I was trying to mirror the core steel on a naniwa super 5k. After a while, the core steel was mirrored, but from most angles, the fine scratch pattern from the stone was still visible. Is that to be expected or are there ways to reduce this? I had the stone under running water as per KasumiJLA's advice a good few pages back on this thread. I'll try flattening/cleaning the stone and trying again, but any tips help. Thanks!
It’s to be expected. A perfect mirror can never be achieved, the best you can hope for is something where the scratches can’t be seen by the naked eye in normal light from more than 6 inches away. The finer the stone you finish with the finer the scratches and the closer you’ll get.
Absolutely stunning work for sure
It ain’t just you, no! The Rika is probably more like other companies’ 4k stones in terms of edges.
And for polishing and scratch patterns - Ceraxes can be tricky to use, specifically because they’re so soft, and AlOx is hard. You get ‘stray’ scratches a lot, unless you use them with the lightest of pressure.
You probably couldn’t compare two more different 5k synths than a Rika and a SS. (Which means it’s actually potentially useful to have both. Normally I wouldn’t reccommend anybody have two different 5k stones).
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I figured as much! I actually don't have a dedicated intermediate stone, but after getting the SS, I began using the Rika as one because it was able to remove Cerax 1k scratches in just 1-2 passes. It works wonders for finishing edges though, which is originally why I got it.
Quick cleanup of this ko-nakiri by Milan. The geometry on this is wild with the angle of the bevel being twice as acute at the tip as at the heel. For a knife this small and flat in profile it’s actually really hard to polish well because of the complex geometry. But, as always with Milan, the geometry is perfectly set so with patience it’s straightforward to follow.
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This Wakui Yanagi coming along.
DarwellianEmpire
Well-Known Member
First successful honyaki polish under the belt. I tried etching with FeCl a few months back and over-etched thus negating my 7 hours of pre-polishing.
I was very upset and defeated and didn’t touch my knives for a few months.
Finally picked it up again this week and here we are. Sandpaper from 400 - 2000 and then diamond paste followed by several cycles with citric acid and ascorbic acid. The mirror isn’t **flawless** but Im happy with my results and the time I spent. The process was fun but I think I will stick with stones in the future. Now onto sharpening and building a patina!
Also y’all aren’t lying in regards to the difficulty of taking proper pictures of a mirrored honyaki.
Knife is a 210 Yoshikazu Ikeda White #3
I was very upset and defeated and didn’t touch my knives for a few months.
Finally picked it up again this week and here we are. Sandpaper from 400 - 2000 and then diamond paste followed by several cycles with citric acid and ascorbic acid. The mirror isn’t **flawless** but Im happy with my results and the time I spent. The process was fun but I think I will stick with stones in the future. Now onto sharpening and building a patina!
Also y’all aren’t lying in regards to the difficulty of taking proper pictures of a mirrored honyaki.
Knife is a 210 Yoshikazu Ikeda White #3
Killer work. Looks great!
It's been a long time since I posted here, so here is the project I just finished. This is a Sheffcut honyaki blade from our good old @MSicardCutlery.
When I received this blade I already wanted to have fun doing reverse polishing. After achieving the mirror effect, I etched the blade and discovered a lot of activity in the steel. Obviously I wanted to preserve these details in my polishing and it took me a really long time to achieve this result. The most difficult part was making the martensite homogeneous. But very happy with the result and I have already forgotten the hours spent
Gonna handle it tomorrow and put it on sale.. even if I really really want to keep it haha
When I received this blade I already wanted to have fun doing reverse polishing. After achieving the mirror effect, I etched the blade and discovered a lot of activity in the steel. Obviously I wanted to preserve these details in my polishing and it took me a really long time to achieve this result. The most difficult part was making the martensite homogeneous. But very happy with the result and I have already forgotten the hours spent
Gonna handle it tomorrow and put it on sale.. even if I really really want to keep it haha
Something about that hamon....it reminds me of an agate
I just had one of those rare saturday's where I have nothing to do, AND it is way too cold to go in the shop. So I finally took the time to restore my Honyaki Hazenberg Nakiri. This is the oldest knife I own, my wifes favourite and our true daily driver. We've used and sharpened this knife so much over the years that it was in desperate need of a thinning. Thinning is something I'm pretty clueless in so I sent it off to knifewear and asked Naoto to give it the hotrod treatment and ideally leave me with a nice 3k base to start polishing on. Came back cutting like it did on day one and I got to work. Oh and let me preface this by saying I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I'M DOING. So for being pretty clueless, I'm pretty happy with the result.
How it started
First glimpse of the hamon using 3200 grit paper and a mix of 1500 grit silicon carbide powder and uchi powder
Putting in work on the full surface now
Discovering a couple stray deep boiz
Fixing a couple stray big boiz
First side mostly to a point I'm happy with
If you don't take your polishing with you to your moms house for dinner, I know you're not serious about this hobby.
Starting on the second side
All the same work as before
And finished with 6k paper just like the other side
There are A LOT of missed scratches, but I did a decent job and I'm pretty happy with it for a knife that my wifes uses for everything and cleans with a green scrubby sponge.
How it started
First glimpse of the hamon using 3200 grit paper and a mix of 1500 grit silicon carbide powder and uchi powder
Putting in work on the full surface now
Discovering a couple stray deep boiz
Fixing a couple stray big boiz
First side mostly to a point I'm happy with
If you don't take your polishing with you to your moms house for dinner, I know you're not serious about this hobby.
Starting on the second side
All the same work as before
And finished with 6k paper just like the other side
There are A LOT of missed scratches, but I did a decent job and I'm pretty happy with it for a knife that my wifes uses for everything and cleans with a green scrubby sponge.
And here's the results in natural light. Again, far from perfect, but considering how it looked a month ago all thick and heavily patinad, to then all scratched up at 3k with no visible hamon, I"m so happy with this. Oh and I polished up the handle too because holy **** is it ever spectacular.
Anyways, that was this weekends adventure. Once I have a fresh board done I'll photograph this guy and add it to my collection thread! Have a good day everyone!
@OwlWoodworks sorry for the dumb question but what are the square sandpaper things?
Are they sandpaper? Where would one find these? They look like synthetic stones
Are they sandpaper? Where would one find these? They look like synthetic stones
OkayMode
I am the pig Daveb's mama was talking about
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Micromesh!
what he said! ^ Amazon Micromesh and they will show up
GJ! How much time did this project kill for you in a 'boring' afternoon? 
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Congrats! That looks good to me, and I finally know how you must have worked for it. I am not normally shy, but I had my own recent first polishing experience, reached my point of being happy with it, thought about posting, took another look at what people like @KasumiJLA and @ethompson routinely turn out, and decided not to post. I seem to be lacking in the obsessive perfectionism that I assume drives the people who create those dreamy finishes. Maybe I should start a "Post your 'good enough' polishing results" thread.
As someone with kids….this has happened to me too
Thank you!
Uncle Danny
Sorry about that pineapple pizza thing
Prepared this this to go on BST later
Some cool grain/detail in Nihei’s damascus iron cladding. Marou shiro suita, while seeming too fine, really excels here.
This HADO petty came with a scratchier finish than is up to par for a Jnat lover. Started in on it.
Here’s the original
Ran it on SG500 to see what I was dealing with
I was definitely expecting it to be somewhat hollow ground just from feeling it, but it wasn’t too bad.
I took it down to SP220 then up to Gesshin 400. Didn’t take long to sort things out.
Here’s the original
Ran it on SG500 to see what I was dealing with
I was definitely expecting it to be somewhat hollow ground just from feeling it, but it wasn’t too bad.
I took it down to SP220 then up to Gesshin 400. Didn’t take long to sort things out.
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lookin good
