Polishing of a rusted Bugei tachi
Jun 18, 2012 21:45:03 GMT
Post by Jussi Ekholm on Jun 18, 2012 21:45:03 GMT
Well a while ago I got a Bugei Little Crow, price was great but I knew there would be a lot of work to be done. I've wanted this Bugei tachi for several years and finally one came up at good price, so I had to have it.
I'll start off with few before pics so you can see the condition.
As you can see from the pictures, the majority of rust was focused on the 1st 3rd of the blade. Rest of the blade was actually in fairly nice condition. However that rust was hurting my eyes so I decided to polish this, even though I was slightly doubting my skills to pull it off as I haven't been playing with polish in several years.
Unfortunately I don't have any process pics but I can describe it in detail. I started off with 180 grit paper, I thought it would be enough to remove the rust, but I was wrong. Another try with 100 grit and it started working better. I was careful as the paper so rough removes much metal. The rust was in very hard to reach inside both hi. I tried my best to remove all the rust but I decided to leave few dimples, as I was getting worried I would remove too much metal and ruining the shape, this was my main concern regarding those big rust areas in the cutting edge. This "rust removal" phase took c. 5-6 hours I did all the papering by hand as I love to feel the blade under the paper, although this is sometimes very rough for the fingers.
Then I started the regular polishing with 180 grit, moving on to 300 and then 400. Onwards to 600, 800, 1000 and then final polishes with 1500 and 2000 grit. I think this is good enough finish, at least for now. Although now later with better light I see few scratches from 600-800 phases that piss me off. So maybe I'll redo the polish some day, and maybe I'll try etching too, but for now I'm fairly satisfied of the results.
Pile of 600-2000's: (did all the work on my floor over newspapers...well not really anywhere else to do it when living in one-room flat. The papers were there to avoid messing my floor
)
And then the end result...
Next up will be redoing tsuka- and sayamaki as both are very loose. I have planned leather hiramaki but that'll have to wait a long while as antiques are my main priority.
I'll start off with few before pics so you can see the condition.
As you can see from the pictures, the majority of rust was focused on the 1st 3rd of the blade. Rest of the blade was actually in fairly nice condition. However that rust was hurting my eyes so I decided to polish this, even though I was slightly doubting my skills to pull it off as I haven't been playing with polish in several years.
Unfortunately I don't have any process pics but I can describe it in detail. I started off with 180 grit paper, I thought it would be enough to remove the rust, but I was wrong. Another try with 100 grit and it started working better. I was careful as the paper so rough removes much metal. The rust was in very hard to reach inside both hi. I tried my best to remove all the rust but I decided to leave few dimples, as I was getting worried I would remove too much metal and ruining the shape, this was my main concern regarding those big rust areas in the cutting edge. This "rust removal" phase took c. 5-6 hours I did all the papering by hand as I love to feel the blade under the paper, although this is sometimes very rough for the fingers.
Then I started the regular polishing with 180 grit, moving on to 300 and then 400. Onwards to 600, 800, 1000 and then final polishes with 1500 and 2000 grit. I think this is good enough finish, at least for now. Although now later with better light I see few scratches from 600-800 phases that piss me off. So maybe I'll redo the polish some day, and maybe I'll try etching too, but for now I'm fairly satisfied of the results.
Pile of 600-2000's: (did all the work on my floor over newspapers...well not really anywhere else to do it when living in one-room flat. The papers were there to avoid messing my floor
)And then the end result...
Next up will be redoing tsuka- and sayamaki as both are very loose. I have planned leather hiramaki but that'll have to wait a long while as antiques are my main priority.
