Here it is everyone! I'm going to lay out everything I did and my setup, process, etc. The end result is OK, not as mirrored as I would like, but it was a learning experience. You can't see in the before picture, but under the gunk was some deep pitting and there was more rust than I initially thought. I'll use it next for practice on honing with lapping films, so it's going to be a worker anyway!
I bought 3M wet/dry sandpaper from Auto Zone (~$4 per pack). (1) pack of 320-400-600-800 grit, (1) pack of 1000-1500-2000-2500 grit, (1) 4 oz. can of Mother's Billet polish.
Setup-
You can see on some pictures I used a white cloth to support the blade when putting down pressure from hand sanding so as not to bend or break it on a completely flat surface. Over the towel I laid a piece of printer paper, this ensured a bit of a flatter surface to see what I'm doing, as well as to keep the razor from digging into the cloth too much. Not sure if this was a good way to go about this, but it worked I guess.
Process -
I started at 320, really spent a lot of time getting out the rust and pitting. Around the jumps and the tang was most difficult, as it was a scales on resto (too cold to use garage for scale making just yet). I got most of it out, but unfortunately there were some small black spots and one biggie that just were too stubborn, and in my inexperience I decided to let them go in before I broke something. I went up through each grit, even 2500!, but learned that I should have spent more time with 400 and 600 grit, as the end result still shows some scratching unfortunately, not much but in the shine of light you can see it. Not sure if this was a good idea, but I did do sanding perpendicular to the blade, then parallel, then circular motion. Not sure if this helped at all, or if I should have just done one direction the whole time.
I finished it off with mother's. Before polishing I used a damp kleenex to clean off all the sanding dust from the blade, which made it look GREAT. I almost think using the mother's brought out the imperfections more, as I thought it looked shinier before polishing. Again, I think this was due to my inexperience and not taking my time transitioning after 320.
Without further ado, pictures (cell phone pics sorry!). I took pictures before, at around 400?, after 800, and then finished. You can't really see how junked parts of the blade were in the pics as I didn't take good enough pictures before, and some of the imperfections are tough to see as well but here it is.
I bought 3M wet/dry sandpaper from Auto Zone (~$4 per pack). (1) pack of 320-400-600-800 grit, (1) pack of 1000-1500-2000-2500 grit, (1) 4 oz. can of Mother's Billet polish.
Setup-
You can see on some pictures I used a white cloth to support the blade when putting down pressure from hand sanding so as not to bend or break it on a completely flat surface. Over the towel I laid a piece of printer paper, this ensured a bit of a flatter surface to see what I'm doing, as well as to keep the razor from digging into the cloth too much. Not sure if this was a good way to go about this, but it worked I guess.
Process -
I started at 320, really spent a lot of time getting out the rust and pitting. Around the jumps and the tang was most difficult, as it was a scales on resto (too cold to use garage for scale making just yet). I got most of it out, but unfortunately there were some small black spots and one biggie that just were too stubborn, and in my inexperience I decided to let them go in before I broke something. I went up through each grit, even 2500!, but learned that I should have spent more time with 400 and 600 grit, as the end result still shows some scratching unfortunately, not much but in the shine of light you can see it. Not sure if this was a good idea, but I did do sanding perpendicular to the blade, then parallel, then circular motion. Not sure if this helped at all, or if I should have just done one direction the whole time.
I finished it off with mother's. Before polishing I used a damp kleenex to clean off all the sanding dust from the blade, which made it look GREAT. I almost think using the mother's brought out the imperfections more, as I thought it looked shinier before polishing. Again, I think this was due to my inexperience and not taking my time transitioning after 320.
Without further ado, pictures (cell phone pics sorry!). I took pictures before, at around 400?, after 800, and then finished. You can't really see how junked parts of the blade were in the pics as I didn't take good enough pictures before, and some of the imperfections are tough to see as well but here it is.
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