How To Micro scratches from kitchen sponge pad

Spankster23

Spankster23

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Wanted to share what a green/yellow 2 sided kitchen sponge scouring pad did to my 940 blade.

I Was trying to clean some tape residue and grease off the blade. One swipe on the rough side of the sponge did this damage.

Seems impossible but I guess the finish is that delicate. Short of 1200 grit wet/dry sand paper, any other suggestions to repair?

The picture is high res close up. Looks worse than it is. You can not feel the scratches with your finger.

Z3MO7My.jpg
 
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Assuming Scotch-Brite pads... the green side is a plastic mesh material impregnated with aluminum oxide grit. Definitely abrasive. Can be a harsh surprise if you're not expecting any alteration in finish. But the flipside is that it can also be useful also, depending on what you're wanting to do to a finish. I use them for applying a very fine satin finish to bolsters on knives previously highly polished. The satin finish does a better job hiding fingerprints and scuffs that would otherwise stand out on a high-polished finish.

Most factory satin finishes on blades are usually somewhere in the 120-400 grit range. I've found that 220 or 320-grit SiC sandpaper closely approximates most of them. Might start in that ballpark, to remove or blend the scratches back into the original finish on that blade.
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
Assuming Scotch-Brite pads... the green side is a plastic mesh material impregnated with aluminum oxide grit. Definitely abrasive. Can be a harsh surprise if you're not expecting any alteration in finish. But the flipside is that it can also be useful also, depending on what you're wanting to do to a finish. I use them for applying a very fine satin finish to bolsters on knives previously highly polished. The satin finish does a better job hiding fingerprints and scuffs that would otherwise stand out on a high-polished finish.

Most factory satin finishes on blades are usually somewhere in the 120-400 grit range. I've found that 220 or 320-grit SiC sandpaper closely approximates most of them. Might start in that ballpark, to remove or blend the scratches back into the original finish on that blade.
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Thanks for the great response. I forgot that you can use those pads to create a satin finish. I’ve done it before in a past life, on old watch cases. I had some medium (maroon) pads for a Dremel tool. They worked great.

Do you think it would damage the laser etching of the BM logo?
 
Spankster23 said:
Thanks for the great response. I forgot that you can use those pads to create a satin finish. I’ve done it before in a past life, on old watch cases. I had some medium (maroon) pads for a Dremel tool. They worked great.

Do you think it would damage the laser etching of the BM logo?
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Depending on how deep the etch is, they might lighten it a bit at least. If that is a laser etch, I'd think it should be plenty deep into the steel. If you inspect the etch under high magnification and bright light, you might get a better feel for how deep it might be.
 
FWIW, I just took a look at an older model Benchmade 690 I have (pic below), at the BM logo on the blade. Assuming it was applied in a similar manner to your 940, the etch seems kind of shallow on mine. If using sandpaper to fix, I'd proceed with caution.
Js1pJVg.jpg

hX9gGTt.jpg
 
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Obsessed with Edges said:
FWIW, I just took a look at an older model Benchmade 690 I have, at the BM logo on the blade. Assuming it was applied in a similar manner to your 940, the etch seems kind of shallow on mine. If using sandpaper to fix, I'd proceed with caution.
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Thanks. Ya I’ll avoid that area completely at first. See if I can get the blade looking better first..
 
Along the same topic, paper towels can be unexpectedly abrasive. They don't make those things in a "clean room", particles of grit routinely get into the "paper" mix.

I was warned long ago never to use paper towels to clean glasses/sun glasses due to their potential for abrasiveness. If a person had, say, a knife with a mirror polish that they wanted to preserve, they might want to avoid using paper towels on them
 
eveled said:
A scratch like this can be very liberating. Now you don’t have to worry about scratching it. Use it with wild abandon and enjoy it.

FWIW, Hand sanitizer is my go to for tape residue.
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Oh it a user for sure. Might be 8 yrs old by now. But If I’m going to scar the knife, I want it from something cool like dressing a deer, or fending off a bear…. Not a kitchen sink incident 😂
 
Spankster23 said:
Wanted to share what a green/yellow 2 sided kitchen sponge scouring pad did to my 940 blade.

I Was trying to clean some tape residue and grease off the blade. One swipe on the rough side of the sponge did this damage.

Seems impossible but I guess the finish is that delicate. Short of 1200 grit wet/dry sand paper, any other suggestions to repair?

The picture is high res close up. Looks worse than it is. You can not feel the scratches with your finger.

Z3MO7My.jpg
Click to expand...
It's happened to me in the past as well. Luckily it was a cheaper knife back before I bought the more expensive ones. I couldn't believe that it scratched it that bad as well. Live and learn I suppose.
 
Spankster23 said:
Just to be clear this was the culprit. The green side of one of these.
zLfwOOm.jpg
Click to expand...

Yeah, I feel like the green side is made by 3M and it will for certain scratch steel. I use it on brass as a nice satin finish.

But damn, one swipe? Those scratches look deep and not very micro.
 
Ya, you can see from scratches they are directional and created by folding the green side over the blade and
pulling the knife through. I saw them immediately and stopped. You wouldn’t think twice about it on S30V steel… I actually looked at some of my chef’s knives and and honestly they’re marred but not scratched like the 940. It’s weird. And I won’t do it again…
 
The deep scratches on the S30V blade are essentially only in the matrix steel making up the vast majority of the blade's alloy, aside from the relatively small amount of vanadium carbide content. So, the aluminum oxide grit in the pad is about 2.5X - 3X as hard as the matrix steel itself and will scratch it easily, but still less hard than those vanadium carbides. So, even high-wear steels can still be visibly marred by the AlOx grit.
 
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