So I hate trying to get rid of deep original grind marks. I have to go as low as 100grit WD and spend a lot of time with my fingers WD and a cork to get them out. Then have to run up through the WD grits to get it polished enough to hit the stones again. Is there an easier way without a belt sander? Some knives I just figure I will sharpen over time and one day the marks will be gone while others i wish to use for polishing and those grind marks just distract and I want to see the full polish.
Deleting the original grind marks
- Thread starter rideon66
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Which part of the knife do you want to polish up? Do you have a pic to illustrate? Just not sure if you mean secondary edge bevel or the primary bevel.
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The whole edge, but the grind marks are much higher up yet still part of the polish. This is before I hit it with WD. My fingers are now black and most of the marks seem gone. Problem is as I start to up in grit I start to see faint spots where some are still there. So I have to keep going back down and up again. Once gone I will hit it with the Shapton GS 500 and then the Turkey stone and finally the Jnats for polish. It is one of my main testers for polishing and so I want a clean slate really.
Gotcha! In the knife world this is known as having “low spots in the bevel”.
It’s definitely a frustrating experience. I wish I had a better answer other than “keep working at a lower grit“ but honestly that’s the answer.
One of the ways that we address it is similar to bevel setting with razors. Work with One Direction strokes at your lowest grit until you have an even scratch pattern, then go up one grit and try to erase the scratches at a different angle. Don’t stop until every single little scratch is gone. Once you’ve done that at your two lowest grits, next steps become easier. If you’re trying to get a totally flat bevel, it’s generally easier to work on something like a diamond plates, or wet dry paper backed with a dead flat surface. Woodcraft sells machine flat granite blocks for about 50 bucks. If this is just a small knife used to test different stone polishes, that’s not really a problem. If you were trying to use a kitchen knife with a particular convex primary bevel grind, it becomes a slightly more challenging problem. In that case you’re opening a little bit more of a can of worms, but it’s doable. Depending on what you want to do we can talk through both.
Even “soft iron cladding“ is still pretty hard stuff. It can take a long time to grind through it.
It’s definitely a frustrating experience. I wish I had a better answer other than “keep working at a lower grit“ but honestly that’s the answer.
One of the ways that we address it is similar to bevel setting with razors. Work with One Direction strokes at your lowest grit until you have an even scratch pattern, then go up one grit and try to erase the scratches at a different angle. Don’t stop until every single little scratch is gone. Once you’ve done that at your two lowest grits, next steps become easier. If you’re trying to get a totally flat bevel, it’s generally easier to work on something like a diamond plates, or wet dry paper backed with a dead flat surface. Woodcraft sells machine flat granite blocks for about 50 bucks. If this is just a small knife used to test different stone polishes, that’s not really a problem. If you were trying to use a kitchen knife with a particular convex primary bevel grind, it becomes a slightly more challenging problem. In that case you’re opening a little bit more of a can of worms, but it’s doable. Depending on what you want to do we can talk through both.
Even “soft iron cladding“ is still pretty hard stuff. It can take a long time to grind through it.
Worth noting that many rough grind marks are actually 36 grit. So 100 grit may be a little too fine to remove those easily. Starting at 60 grit with purple 3M cubitron paper is the best option I’ve found for paper.
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- #6
Now
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- #7
Yeah I unfortunately didn't have anything lower on hand than the 100 grit so just had to work a bit harder I guess. It looks close to what I was aiming for now and I didn't have to redo the geometry. I probably could have layed the 100 on the Atoma and just worked it like that, but I did it more like finger stones to work out the grinds. It is pretty close to flat and with a good final slurry on a Suita it will hit the polish the whole side.
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