Kimura V Improvements Thread
I'm going to be doing quite a few simple improvements that make a big difference, and I'll do them across multiple posts, so bear with me, this is my first tutorial. By the time this is done, the blade will be mirror finished, the phosphor washers will be polished and resurfaced, the handles will be completely loctited, and the blade will have the bevel angle reset and sharpened up to 5k, followed by pasted strops and regular ones.
So, The first step here is aesthetic - I want to brighten up the finish on the blade. I believe Kimura's are Bead Blast finished, and I want a nice shiny mirror finish. I'm fortunate in that I don't have to Hand Sand my blades anymore (trust me, I've done my share of that.) and have the appropriate tools for this task.
Since I've gone from restoring straight razors as a hobby to doing it as a source of income, I've invested in a set of buffers and buffing wheels. For this project I've used 4 wheels - One is spiral sewn cotton, the other three are Loose Cotton (if you want to know the difference, go to HomeDepot.com and look them up, it becomes apparent quickly). The basic difference being that the Spiral Sewn cotton is stiffer and will cut faster/more aggressively, and will leave scratches if you aren't careful. The Loose cotton has give to it and will cut slowly and leave a softer finish (it too will scratch the finish if you aren't careful, but not as often or as bad.)
The spiral sewn wheel was loaded with Black Emery compound (fast cut), the first Loose cotton was White Stainless Steel (slow cut), the second was Green Rouge (Jeweler's rouge for shine) [these three compounds were purchased at CaswellPlating.com] and the last wheel had Pink Rouge Buffing Compound from TexasKnife.com
I spent an hour or so on the Black making sure I had removed a uniform surface from the whole of the blade to get it shiny (at this point it looks like a stonewashed blade, only smoother). Once you finish with your lowest grit polish, it's a relatively quick process IF YOU ARE CAREFUL. With too much pressure you will scratch your finish and have to start over completely. If you don't have to start over, you will spend about as much time on wheels 2, 3 and 4, as you did on the first one, maybe less.
So, I'll spare you the details - I was just buffing. There are plenty of videos and instructionals on that already. The outcome is a flawless mirror finish. Pictures forthcoming.
IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE. If you are changing the finish on a blade, you have two options: 1. Do not bring the finish all the way to the edge, and keep the edge or 2. Destroy the edge and need to resharpen it, but get a complete finish. That's all there is to it. Whether sandpaper, buffers, vibratory tumblers or anything else. If it removes the surface of metal to create a finish, it will remove the edge.
This suits my purpose since I intend to alter the edge anyways, but it is often overlooked - if you don't have a way to resharpen the knife from scratch, then don't do this.
Photos are too large to upload - Here's a photobucket album for those of you interested
http://s1023.photobucket.com/albums/af356/menefejp/
Next step is the washers, which I will do now, photograph, then submit for your approval.
I really like the contrast this blade has, I think I'm going to buff the blade of my Kershaw Shallot too...