sanding O1, and buffing to polish

A

AJH_Knives

Well-Known Member
hey guys quick question on sanding and buffing out O1. I hand sanded out to 800 grit then buffed with black compound then off to green. the blade is shiny no question about that. however there are these super micro scratches I cannot seem to remove. also i sand down the length of the blade and there is a grain pattern in the sanding. will you ever remove that? will O1 sand and buff out to mirror polish or will you still see grain lines? and what about those micro scratches??? any help is appreciated.

Aaron
 
I don't see why it wont. I think you need to go finer than 800 before you buff, say at least 2000. Another thing I have found is, every time you go to a finer grit, change the direction you sand. That way you can see when you have all the previous scratches out.
 
This is an O-1 blade.The flats were taken to 800g finish and the rest was taken to 3000g belt finish before polish. As said, you won't acheive a scratchless mirror polish before 2000g or higher. At 800g you're basicly polishing the high spots of the scratches. If stopping at 2000g, you shouldn't need black compound. Start with gray and finish with green. Don't use green on handle materials, I use white or pink depending on what it is.




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Rudy
 
I use O-1 a lot. I have found that you can't skip any grits. If you do you will get those scratches. If scratches show up I drop back one level say from 400 back to 320 grit. Then work forward again. When I am hand sanding I use Mobil One oil. It works. You can do a search and see more info on it. I hope this helps. I am not an expert but this works for me.
 
I go all the way to 3000 grit then buff with green then with pink rouge, This knife is O-1 steel and mammoth ivorymark peters mammoth knife finished 005.jpg
 
Don't forget to burnish. Leather then denim material are two that work well. They will make small surface blushes disappear.
 
thanks guys, been doing this by hand.. worked on one for about 2 hours last night, thought i had it till i started buffing, then they magically appear.. it gets frustrating. I am using Mobile 1
 
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