I bought a stainless steel knife blade that I want to slightly reshape part of. My question is - will I be able to keep the finish the same on the part I grind down? Or will it be permanently duller? It is part if the edge that is unsharpened (so... the "flat" backside, if that makes sense) that I want to alter...
Yes, you can. It will take some work with different grade sandpaper, then buffing compounds.
Start with 80 and end with 600 grit paper. I sometimes use 40 but that takes off a lot of steel. I normally use 80, 120, 320 then 600.
For buffing SS, I think you use the green compound. I've only used the White and Red since I've never done Stainless.
FB
P.S. there's a guy here who makes swords, you should look him up and ask him!!
FB
What are you going to grind it down with? If you are using a bench grinder with a fine wheel and you have a steady hand you can get a pretty good finish(You want to get as smooth a finish from your shaping as you can anyway, less work later) maybe even good enough to satisfy your goal. If you use a dremel with a fine grit you can also get really close. Clamp the blade, when using the dremel, so that you can control the tool better.
Then if you still want a better finish, do as Mr. Bolo says and use finer grits to sand it down. I would use wet/dry paper and sand wet(use a bucket of water with a little dish soap in it) you can get a beautiful finish with some elbow grease. Then top it off with either a buffing wheel and rouge or hand polish with something like Flitz.
I've just recently used my belt sander to reshape a couple of stainless steel table knives I got at a thrift store into prop scalpels I'll be using at our party room at Marscon in Minnesota. The product I had used was a 3M 120 grit sanding belt and got very good results. It does take a bit of time, though.
Do you mean duller as in he finish or duller as in being able to hold an edge?
I'm just talking the finish. I have a bench grinder and a dremel, so getting the shape I want shouldnt be too difficult. I just didnt want to bother if I wasnt going to be able to make the surface where I ground it down match the rest. But lots of good info here so I am gonna give it a go.
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