How to Get the mirror polish?

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psp7

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Dec 12, 2010
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What tools or products do you use to get the mirror polish on your knife or axe blades? I'm close, but cant get rid of the light feather marks:grumpy:. Currently my finest stones are only the DMT red fine diamond stone that is a 600 grit, Gransfors Bruks Swedish double sided(coarse&fine) sandstone puck for my axes, some 600 grit paper and I picked up a sheet of 1500 grit paper from a Finland company. Of coarse I have the typical Arkansas coarse and fine grit stones that I rarely use and I dont know what grit they are, nor do I know the grit of the GB axe puck. What else should I get? Should I close the gap between 600 and 1500 and find something around 1000 grit? I was thinking of getting the DMT green extra fine diamond stone as that is 1200 grit. Do I need something finer than the 1500 paper to get that polish? A local knife shop has a 6,000 Japanese grit stone. Thats gotta be like running your blade along glass:D. I'd rather not use any sophisticated aligners or contraptions of sort. Just simple dry products that I can take on the fly if I need without being bulky or messy. Can a polish be had without pastes, compounds or buffing tools? Any suggestions with your experience would be greatly appreciated.:)
 
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True mirror polish kicks in around 14,000 grit or 1 micron, you would need 600, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500, 3000 plus some polish to get a mirror finish.
 
do you mean on the edge or on the blade in general? for the edge, I use my slotted paperwheel.
 
psp7 said:
What tools or products do you use to get the mirror polish on your knife or axe blades? I'm close, but cant get rid of the light feather marks:grumpy:. Currently my finest stones are only the DMT red fine diamond stone that is a 600 grit, Gransfors Bruks Swedish double sided(coarse&fine) sandstone puck for my axes, some 600 grit paper and I picked up a sheet of 1500 grit paper from a Finland company. Of coarse I have the typical Arkansas coarse and fine grit stones that I rarely use and I dont know what grit they are, nor do I know the grit of the GB axe puck. What else should I get? Should I close the gap between 600 and 1500 and find something around 1000 grit? I was thinking of getting the DMT green extra fine diamond stone as that is 1200 grit. Do I need something finer than the 1500 paper to get that polish? A local knife shop has a 6,000 Japanese grit stone. Thats gotta be like running your blade along glass:D. I'd rather not use any sophisticated aligners or contraptions of sort. Just simple dry products that I can take on the fly if I need without being bulky or messy. Can a polish be had without pastes, compounds or buffing tools? Any suggestions with your experience would be greatly appreciated.:)
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I have the green DMT EF stone and it works great. I also have the EEF tan stone (4") but haven't seen much benefit from it but that may just be me. Another thing, the 1200 green stone and the 6000 grit Japanese stone may be closer in coarseness than we know because they are different types of material. That is a completely different subject and thread. I think to get a good mirror polish you will need to use a strop in addition to what you are doing now. The compounds come in different grits, meshes or other terms used to describe how coarse or fine material is. I'm no expert but I think you are on the right track.

Jack
 
psp7 said:
What tools or products do you use to get the mirror polish on your knife or axe blades? I'm close, but cant get rid of the light feather marks:grumpy:. Currently my finest stones are only the DMT red fine diamond stone that is a 600 grit, Gransfors Bruks Swedish double sided(coarse&fine) sandstone puck for my axes, some 600 grit paper and I picked up a sheet of 1500 grit paper from a Finland company. Of coarse I have the typical Arkansas coarse and fine grit stones that I rarely use and I dont know what grit they are, nor do I know the grit of the GB axe puck. What else should I get? Should I close the gap between 600 and 1500 and find something around 1000 grit? I was thinking of getting the DMT green extra fine diamond stone as that is 1200 grit. Do I need something finer than the 1500 paper to get that polish? A local knife shop has a 6,000 Japanese grit stone. Thats gotta be like running your blade along glass:D. I'd rather not use any sophisticated aligners or contraptions of sort. Just simple dry products that I can take on the fly if I need without being bulky or messy. Can a polish be had without pastes, compounds or buffing tools? Any suggestions with your experience would be greatly appreciated.:)
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I think 'closing the gap' between grits is what it's all about. Take small 'baby steps' in the grit progression. Being that you'd like to do this without the pastes, compounds & buffing tools, I think the sandpaper puts you on the right track. You can get Norton wet/dry sandpaper from Woodcraft stores (or online) in 220/320/400/600/800/1000/1200/1500/2000 grit. Among these, you should start to see a polish at around 1000 grit or above. It's much easier to remove the scratches & feather marks by making sure to use each & every grit to it's furthest, before moving to the next grit. And some very fine grit 'polishing films' can be found online, in grits up to & beyond 10,000. The polishing films are like the sandpaper, except the backing is a mylar (plastic) film.
 
Enough of the silly antics. No more warnings.
 
thank you so much. baby steps and filling in with various grits thoroughly. :) SO a diamond 1200 grit and say Japanese or Arkansas stone 1200 grit with the same reserved number arent necessarily the same grit?
 
No, very different. 2k sandpaper is like a 6-8k stone when fresh but like a 8-10k after working it for a bit. Sandpaper breaks down as its used.

A DMT EF would be like 600-800 grit sandpaper or like a 3k waterstone.

Its a lot more complex than that but you would need to use them to understand.
 
I personally like to use my Worksharp Knife & Tool Sharpener, though aftermarket Micro-Mesh belts are an absolute necessity(which can really ramp up the cost). Honestly though, the easiest and most perfect mirror edge I ever got was on my Edge Pro. It's really unbelievable how you can "jump" grits. There are only 5 stones, and after the 1000 grit stone the edge is pretty much perfect. You can go further with the polishing tapes, but I doubt you could tell the difference without a microscope.

Still, I find the Worksharp to be less of a hassle to use, even if I have to switch between 11 different grit belts. The important thing seems to be sure you erase all the previous grind lines before moving to a finer grit belt. The edge starts getting shiny around 320MX-400MX and takes a mirror around 600MX. The important thing seems to be thorough on the belts prior to that.
 
Lots of good info in this thread. I think "Obsessed with edges" nailed it by saying use baby steps in grit progression. I use an edge pro sharpener and have all the stones and tapes except the highest grit tapes. I can get a mirror edge using it so I can use a magnifying glass to look at the edge and see a perfect image of the ceiling fan and light above my head. My problem is I still have individual scratches on the edge but between the scratches is a mirror finish. Either I'm progressing to a finer grit too soon leaving the larger scratches on the edge from the coarser stones or my stones are comtaminated with larger particles left over from coarser stones during the polishing. The second possibility would be due to me not cleaning the stones properly or they need to be flattened to start with a fresh surface. Either way it's my fault.

There are lots of good sharpening tools out there as well as methods to use. With the info here you should be able to get the results you desire. Another key element is patience. One fault I have is getting in a hurry. Wish I could be more help but I'm not near as knowledgable as a lot of people here.

Jack
 
Just finished my Para2 in S90V with my new 150MX-240MX belts, which helped a lot in smoothing out the grind lines from the coarse belts. Final polish went up to the 12000AO belt.

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Noctis3880 said:
... The important thing seems to be sure you erase all the previous grind lines before moving to a finer grit...
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This is the secret. Sometimes you won't see scratches from the rougher grit until you get to a higher - so you go back and work your way back up. If you want it mirror perfect.

Remember, better is the worst enemy of good enough.
 
Noctis3880, Great edge on you knife. The printed characters may even be clearer in your edge reflection than on the paper. :)

Jack
 
I loooove polishing stuff (and sharpening).

I have nothing to add to the discussion, I am just proud of this one...
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unit said:
I loooove polishing stuff (and sharpening).

I have nothing to add to the discussion, I am just proud of this one...
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Shoot - I know you bought one of those Criss Angel "Pro" Magic Kits. Thos have to be illusions. How can you get a blade to look like a mirror? You can't do it! Tell me how! :p
 
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