- Joined
- May 21, 2007
- Messages
- 1,432
I have had a busy couple of days and if you looked at the work two days ago you can really see a huge change. In fact, the knives are ready for taking photos and selling.
This photo was taken after I finished polishing the metal on the knife. I tape off the stone to prevent "clouding" the polish with the polishing compound and wheels used for the polishing. The tape also prevents me from getting the stone too hot and either cracking or crazing on the surface. I use a total of five wheels and four different compounds depending on what part of the knife I am polishing with the fifth wheel being a scotchbrite wheel for removing scratches from the blade ricasso mostly.
This is the next step photo. I use a very small amount of high grade oil on the pivot points and I do this before I do the knife clean up so that I can remove any excess oil in the cleaning step that is next.
This is the cleaning stage where I use a solvent to remove all of the buffing compound I can get out of the well, the blade pivot area and along the rocker arm.
This is a very tedious two step stage. I first use Semichrome polish to get out as many of the micro scratches that are left from the fine "no scratch" pink buffing compound on the last of the cotton buffing wheels. I then use Kiwi Neutral Shoe polish to clean off the metal and stone. It removes a bunch of black residue from the metal polishing stages. I use one micro fiber buff for the Semichrome; one for the Kiwi wax and a final new one for the final wipe down.
This is what they look like before I start the photo stage. I often need to do a bit of touch up with Semichrome and Kiwi wax as I always seem to find a few new scratches that just seem to pop up with the knives just sitting there. I think Silver Nickel get scratches from just looking at it!
This photo was taken after I finished polishing the metal on the knife. I tape off the stone to prevent "clouding" the polish with the polishing compound and wheels used for the polishing. The tape also prevents me from getting the stone too hot and either cracking or crazing on the surface. I use a total of five wheels and four different compounds depending on what part of the knife I am polishing with the fifth wheel being a scotchbrite wheel for removing scratches from the blade ricasso mostly.
This is the next step photo. I use a very small amount of high grade oil on the pivot points and I do this before I do the knife clean up so that I can remove any excess oil in the cleaning step that is next.
This is the cleaning stage where I use a solvent to remove all of the buffing compound I can get out of the well, the blade pivot area and along the rocker arm.
This is a very tedious two step stage. I first use Semichrome polish to get out as many of the micro scratches that are left from the fine "no scratch" pink buffing compound on the last of the cotton buffing wheels. I then use Kiwi Neutral Shoe polish to clean off the metal and stone. It removes a bunch of black residue from the metal polishing stages. I use one micro fiber buff for the Semichrome; one for the Kiwi wax and a final new one for the final wipe down.
This is what they look like before I start the photo stage. I often need to do a bit of touch up with Semichrome and Kiwi wax as I always seem to find a few new scratches that just seem to pop up with the knives just sitting there. I think Silver Nickel get scratches from just looking at it!
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