Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Sept 20, 2018 15:22:04 GMT
As far as I know there are only the ,,0'' grades in steel wool. 0000 is the finest. Super fine. What ,,0'' mark coarse and middle have I do not know, but I found that there are variations depending who the producer was. I have two brands, one generic home improvement no name and one French brand, the house brand of the DIY Super I frequent. The French medium grade is somewhat softer than the no name medium I found. Both have probably the same ,,0'' grade, so this ,,0'' business is not a DIN norm it seems. More an indication. You'll have to fiddle around with different brands to get the stuff you think is best for you. One thing though that is important: when you use the 4x0 do not smoke or touch it with an open flame. I had a bunch in the ashtray once and mindlessly tossed a still burning match on it. The stuff went ,, WOOOSH''. It reacts much like gun powder!
I use Mothers on hilts only. There it works fine. Naked steel though.... I looked at the effects of Mothers in day light yes. The blue tinge remains, even after a good scrub with thinner or acetone. That is not to say the stuff is worthless on blade steel. The problem with antiques is that when these sabres were made, the steel used had great variations in hardness and composition. Production was still very crude compared to what we have today. Now we can order a special mix for a one time job or order endless suplies of steel nr xxxx which will be virtually the same now and after 10 years. Or 100 years. So what I mean to say here is that what works on one old blade may have a different effect on another. With this blade anything above medium grade steel wool just looks awful. That was a surprise. What I am very fond of is the deep dark silvery grey I get when buffing with steel wool and oil. If all goes well.
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Post by Sir Thorfinn on Sept 20, 2018 16:59:51 GMT
Thanks, I suspected there was some form of variation in the steel wool grit, from brand and country...just trying to gauge what you're using as a starting point. As to flammability, its a survival/backwoods trick to use steel wool as flammable tinder. I think its the oil mostly that makes it do this. Interesting that older steels react the way you say with Mothers, but not surprising really. Note to self...just don't
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Sept 21, 2018 14:16:51 GMT
Update 5. Day 6. The sabre is done and the scabbard is in 120 grid. I cannot remove all signs of abuse, it looked it was racked over the rocks and then bashed with them, but at least it will be sort of shiny again, warts and all. When cleaning the spine of the sabre I discovered the faintest remnants of the Solingen S. And here is the fake dirt covering the wedges and the epoxy clay. Super glue and steel dust works rather well. This mix is hard as nails now. The blade came out very well I think. Nice dark and shiny and all lines much improved. Still an Officers grade polish, but what the heck. And the scabbard. Needs lots of work, but the worst is done. Cheers.
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Post by Sir Thorfinn on Sept 21, 2018 15:06:52 GMT
Another question. Having found a color change from Mothers, do you find any color variance from the various waxes? Ren Wax, etc?
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Sept 21, 2018 15:52:00 GMT
No, not at all. Been using Ren wax for years now. It is great. Does what it says on the tin.
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Sept 22, 2018 16:18:56 GMT
Update 6. Day 7. ,, Not all what sparkles are diamonds '' edition. While polishing the scabbard I used a medium sanding block on the left, the first section. On the right, between the mounts, I used only steel wool. It does not come out very well in this image, but the sanding block left a very bright and cheap finish, comparable with Mothers, though without the blue tinge. Like the scabbard was made of tin plate. The all steel wool finish here is of the same grade, medium, but is not as overly bright. More dark, silvery and softer. Makes the scabbard look solid and in my view, is more appropriate for an antique. Of course this is all a matter of taste. The sanding block makes for less work though. This thing makes you skip the 3 stages with steel wool easely. On the other hand I do not want my old stuff to look like a modern repro. I do not know what they use in modern sanding blocks and pastes that makes for such a different finish.
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Sept 24, 2018 15:24:03 GMT
Update 7. Day 8. LC=DONE. Tomorrow I want to start with the HC. I love to see how things come together. Solid. Cheers.
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Sept 26, 2018 16:19:31 GMT
HC. Day 1. The blade is really very dark from patches of rust and gunk. Turns out most of this upper layer consists of old grease mixed with rust. Under this layer moisture did not penetrate very deep overall. Just in small patches here and there. It is getting worse the closer one gets to the tip though. 60 grid rolled up in a little roll worked perfectly. It helps that the steel is quite soft. Still took nearly 5 hours to get this far to the end of the fuller. 80 grid will take out most of the small pitting remaining and polish out the 60 grid scratches. That said those little pits can be very persistend so some will remain I think. Still, for a seriously neglected 200 year old blade it starts to look quite sound again.
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Post by Jordan Williams on Sept 28, 2018 0:51:49 GMT
Absolutely amazing job on the LC sword. Especially under the langets too. HC sword is looking to turn up similarly nicely.
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Sept 28, 2018 3:57:02 GMT
Thanks. This blade took a lot of abuse. Many contact marks on the edge and also, you can see it in the above picture, right in the middle a dent on the edge continuing into the fuller. Must have been one hell of a blow with the flat. The blade did not bend, though someone sure tried.
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Post by Jordan Williams on Sept 28, 2018 4:39:30 GMT
I see it now, eesh that's a massive dent. That's actually how I bent my rapier instructors blade on his Hanwei Hutton. We swapped over swords (he used my CS and I his Hutton) and I accidentally caught a blow across the flat.
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Post by bluetrain on Sept 28, 2018 15:43:28 GMT
Would "burnishing" be a way of polishing metal, but in this case, only a blade? But burnishing, I mean polishing metal with another piece of metal, usually with something intended for the purpose, to make it bright. I don't recall ever seeing it used in connection with blades, though, but only for things like breastplates. Probably the word is not generally used with such a specific meaning, but that's the only point I'm interested in.
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Sept 28, 2018 15:57:01 GMT
HC. Day 2-3. Yesterday I cleared the fuller and the tip and today, with little time to spare, the edge section. Probed the ricasso area. Hilts with langets are blade killers. Under the langets is where the dust and gunk settles, attracting moisture and forming a deep rusty crust over time. Here even 60 grid did not do much. The problem is that the black under the langets sits already lower than the blade surface. So tomorrow I will go chemical on this thing. It's the only way. Darn. The !@@@! hippie that thought up langets should be dug up and burned with fire.
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Sept 28, 2018 21:53:53 GMT
Would "burnishing" be a way of polishing metal, but in this case, only a blade? But burnishing, I mean polishing metal with another piece of metal, usually with something intended for the purpose, to make it bright. I don't recall ever seeing it used in connection with blades, though, but only for things like breastplates. Probably the word is not generally used with such a specific meaning, but that's the only point I'm interested in. Interesting question. As far as I know burnishing is about compressing the upper layer of a soft metal with a tool made of a harder material. To burnish gild foil on for instance picture frames one uses an agathe stone. Just for the heck of it I once used such an agathe stone on a China katana. That did not work. The steel was too hard. I think that in principle burnishing a blade could work if you could find something of the right hardness and have the abillity to shape that hard material into a shape you could use on a blade. For a fullered blade you would need several of such tools. One of the problems, or maybe the main problem would be that burnishing is very time consuming, even on soft materials like gold, since one needs to wield considerable pressure on a small segment of the work piece with a tool that has only a small contact area. This small contact area focusses all pressure on a small fragment of the piece so pressure is maximised in that particular spot. For gold this is not such a problem and work may proceed quite fast. For a hardened steel blade this would mean one has to spend days or even weeks to burnish the blade. It would be like covering the entire blade with a sharpened pencil, cm for cm. In the end I think I'd rather just polish. Though, thinking about katana, the use of polishing stones may point in the direction of burnishing. A sort of compromise between polishing and burnishing proper. Antique katana blades can have this extreemly hard, glass like surface. I spoke with a katana blade restorer once who told me that this particular blade took him 6 months to complete. For Western blades though, such a finish is not fitting. Over here we polished our stuff with some sand and oil and even later factory Army blades had a low grade polish. Shiny, but with lots of lines in it. Officers stuff was better but certainly not faultless. It would drive a Japanese polisher up the wall.
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Post by bluetrain on Sept 28, 2018 22:21:35 GMT
Thank you for the nice and thorough reply. The definition I was using is how you define it, although I would say "smoothing the surface," rather than compressing it. I'd still call it polishing, even though I didn't think it would be practical on a blade because of the (presumed) hardness of the metal. But I think it may have been a common procedure in the 18th and 19th century in military circles for routine maintenance but not of swords. When I was in the army, a couple of men achieved a bright polish on canteens by burnishing with dog tag chains. I never did anything like that and I wasn't very good at polishing boots, either.
I understand that in traditional Japanese sword making, a specialist polishes the blade. But Japanese army swords in WWII were mostly not made in the traditional ways. Firearms came in various finishes, from a high gloss blue to a sandblasted finish. I always like the older S&W satin finish. But the better the finish on anything, the better the scratches will show.
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Sept 29, 2018 4:34:16 GMT
,, But the better the finish on anything, the better the scratches will show.''
That's for sure. Makes you wonder why we have this polishing compulsion in the first place, why we are attracted to shiny things. It does not seem to be practical, nor logical. Is it because of the old monkey in us? And the magpie collecting shiny bits. Why? Seems to be a primeval fetish of sorts. Is it logical to have this shiny car, this shiny charriot of the Gods, when it would be more practical to have it rusted and enhanced with a few dents here and there for good meassure? A good layer of rust protects the steel just as well as 20 layers of paint. Antique rust blued scabbards often still are in good condition. Do we hate, in general, rust, as seen as decay, so much because it reminds us of our own short live span? Than the shiny blade is the blade of the Gods, lifting us out of the natural state of decay, into the realm of god like perfection. Who wants to write a book? Time for more coffee...
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Post by bluetrain on Sept 29, 2018 9:28:17 GMT
Good answer but I don't think your theory will hold on the thin metal of a car body. At any rate, my compulsion to polish doesn't last anywhere near as long as yours does.
Why do armies, all of them as far as I know, have this compulsion to whitewash rocks and trees?
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Sept 29, 2018 10:23:34 GMT
Let's ask General Mattis. He should know.
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Oct 1, 2018 16:21:34 GMT
HC Day 4-5-6. Saterday I removed the gunk under the langets with 8% nitric acid solution. There was no other way. There was a lot of scraping done. I used the end of the handle of this brush with some 60 grid rolled on to get in the fuller under the langet. And some paper rolled on a flat stick to clean the ricasso. Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle, but the results are good. This entire side is now in 120 grid. Time to tape off the tip section and start on the other side. Have a day off from work tomorrow, so I can scrape and curse all day long. Woopie.....?
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Post by althesmith on Oct 2, 2018 11:14:15 GMT
I know burnishing is used sometimes on the soft sides/back of Japanese swords in traditional polishing. Admittedly normally these areas are unhardened.
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