RESTORING A USED KNIFE TO MINT CONDITION

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Permalink Reply by J.J. Smith III on May 21, 2010 at 0:22

I missed it too, but I sure liked going back and having a look. Frank had a lot of good information there.

Permalink Reply by Halicon on January 14, 2011 at 5:40

This might perhaps be a bit overkill for a regular folding knife or fixed blade, but in any case I always do it on any vintage steel product.

 

Items;

 

Jewelers loupe or microscope, aim for 30x to 50x

Binsui stone, belgian blue powder and belgian coticule powder.

Burnishing knife and burnishing pin.

Camelia Oil or Clover oil (for use with burnishing tools)

Antler powder to wipe up the oil and give a very light buffing after cutting away the rust

 

Disassemble the craft whatever it may be. Grab the microscope and the burnishing knife. Cut away only the ferrous oxide with the knife by angling it horizontally and adding a few degrees. Cut until the area is free of ferrous steel (orange/yellow rust). At this point you may choose to save the patina that has developed under the ferrous oxide in order to make it look more archaic in the case of a really old knife or a collection knife.

 

If you want to make it look as new again then keep on reading.

Now you grab the binsui (very slow cutter), apply -very- light pressure on the previous flat surfaces in order to bring out a new flat and remove any pitting or patina (only on flat spots). Make sure to remove as little material as possible after the blemishes are gone.

 

Now it's time to grab the burnishing needle, dip it in belgian blue powder (because they consist of garnets, round shape which is very good for restoration, same with coticule only that it is finer) and scrape with it lightly at any deep pits to remove patina and bring out the original shine. If you do it well enough without loosing control then you will fool the eye to make it look like a flush surface without any irregularities like pits.

 

After this step, switch to belgian coticule and repeat the previous step, this time you will achieve a near mirror reflection, truly tricking the eye to believe the knife looks like new.

 

That's it for the steel parts. The handle material rarely is a problem to fix.

No corrosive acids, no treatments. just careful microscopic removal of the rust and nothing else and then a gentle polish to bring it's details back out again. Has worked great for me and it doesn't harm the steel or any other part which some liquid "restoration formulas" can do.

 

I'm currently working with this method on 17 chisels, done 5 or so already but will shoot a few pics when I'm done. They were between 20-80 years old(I think two might even be over 100 years old) so it is  seriously corroded steel.

 

This has been the fastest way for me to remove only the rust but leave the black oxidized finish from the smith still intact. Since it basically is oxidized steel it would be removed along with the "bad" rust if I used any liquids or treatments.

 

The burnishing tools are quite expensive however as they are made for cutting in steel, I would guess somewhere around HRC 66-68. $150 for the needle and $400 for the knife is what it ran me at. Awesome tools for restoration however.