All About Pocket Knives

Hello,

I have decided I would like to start repairing knives. I have found a bunch of great information on this site to help me do so. That being said I am having problems finding anything on polishing. I have been to many websites that want to sell you polishing creams that claim to be all other polishes in one tube. They may work but for some reason, I think there is more to polishing then a 500 in 1 cream can do.

So that being said, I am wondering if anybody can point me in the right direction as far as, what types of polish are good and a technique that may be helpfull. I have access to a few power tools but will mainly be using good old elbow grease, and a rotary tool.

Thanks a bunch :

Hi Ihateme27
to AAPK.
It is good to see another fellow Oregonian in the forum.

While I do on occasion use some polishes, most of the polishing I do is by machine. There are people on here who know more about this than I do, but I will start the ball rolling.

I usually use loose muslin wheel to buff with. The compound I use depends on what I am buffing.

A great place to start is to get catalogs for two or three knife makers supply companies & read about the different buffing compounds they have.
Jantz Supply- http://knifemaking.com/index.html
K & G- http://www.knifeandgun.com/Default.asp?Redirected=Y
Texas Knife Makers Supply- http://www.texasknife.com/TKS_Mainframe.htm

That will show what they have and what the recommend you use it for.

Maybe Hukk or Muskrat Man will be along and tell you what they use.

Dale

Dale pretty much took the words right out of my mouth, including the welcome .

Most of my polishing is done by a buffer, felt tips on a dremel tool work well if they are kept moving so's not to dish out any places or cause any ununiformness (Is that a word?). Buffers are the best thing to use for getting high polishes. Before you polish on a buffer or with any polishing creme such as simichrome (what I use for just tarnish) is to remove and gouges, scratches, or dents with sandpaper, usually starting with 220 working your way down the line to 320 then 400 then 600 and thats when I usually hit the buffer, if you plan on doing this entirely by hand I suggest you get some finer grits going down to 1000 or even 1500 grit so you don't have shiny scratches, becasue polishing cremes do not remove and blend material like a buffer will.
If you have any more questions feel free to ask, that is what we are here for.
And welcome to the forum
Best

Thank you both for the quick reply. I do have a dremel so I will try the method listed. Looks like I need to go out and get some sandpaper. I am glad to hear that I don't need to buy a 100 dollar tube of paste.

I just opened up my first repair knife . and needed something to do with it until I wanted to try the hard stuff. Cleaning the blades up will help it seem like I am making good progress.

Thanks Again

I use a 1725 RPM buffer. A 3600 RPM buffer is not what you want to use with loose muslim on a knife blade. That high speed buffer will chew up wheels faster and can easily grab a blade and throw the knife. 1750 is much safer, but still need to be cautious on the buffer I usually use pink scratchless on a loose muslim wheel for my final buff. If I see something not shiney enough (cloudy) I will go back with a coarser buff. 3600 RPM with a 8 or 10 inch wheel is a bit hazardous for my liking, stay with the slower buffer.

Hukk is on the money, with what he said. I forgot to mention the buffer speed. 1725 is MUCH better than 3600 RPM.

For the first buffing I use a green Tripoli & then to a green Pure Chrome compound. The No Scratch Pink is usually my final buff.

I do have another white compound that is very fine. I it use on stag & bone. It doesn't leave any green or pink residue on the bone & seems to do a nice job.

Dale

Do you need a diffrant well for each color?

The different colors are for the different grits in the compound.

The coarse for the first buff, then the medium & then the fine for the high polished mirror finish.

Yes, I use a different wheel for each one. If I use a wheel that had the coarse compound on it and I try to buff with fine compound it can scratch what I am polishing.

I also use different wheels for brass & steel, as a tiny piece of steel in a wheel will scratch the brass.

Dale