How High of Maintenance is Mirror Finish

Pretty much asking what the title states



How easy will these guys scratch and lose their mirror finish. If im not polishing myself yet (not even sharpening) am I better staying away from them at the moment ?, and sticking to something else ?, cause id be happy with just this for a while


For a long while,... who wouldnt be

 

Mirror finishes can be pretty fragile. It would depend a lot on how hard the surface is. If it's a soft cladding, it will scratch, or get hazy pretty easily. If it a fully hardened mono steel, not so much, but it will stil show scratches/scuffs. A differentially hardened piece, a blend of both I would think.

 

I've seen a video from a guy once, cannot remember his name, cleaning mirro polish on his Mizuno chefs knife. The patination was quite heavy but it the process went quite smooth.
The thing is, you want to use a honyaki mirro polished knife and after some years still have the blade look new?
If yes, buy a blade, squirt some lacquer on it and put somewhere safe.

Sweety dogg is he called?

 

if it is used regularly and you want to maintain it ( mirror polish), i think its a testament that one is a macho man. It gets scuffed, scratches when using it when cutting hard items and also when re-sharpening... its the whole process again when it needs to be abraded on say medium stones. Choice of stones wld be important as some wld leave that kasumi finish, some dark, light gray or very light gray. I have quite given up with it as i leave the light scratches, scuff marks. When the urge calls, I wld use sandpaper no less than 1000 grit and followed by polishing compounds on buffer wheels. That's the limit that I wld go.

have fun... D

 

I got one looking nice with a sandpaper progression but it was a lot of work. So many finger prints and everything else to deal with... I'm going to let it get beat up again. Maybe it go over it with some 600 grit sandpaper to make it uniform. Or just use some stones.

 

You can make your mirror polish in home using sand paper, polishing mops and compounds. It will get scratched quickly but with use of proper tools you can get it back quickly.

Polishing mops:


Hand drill or press drill:



Knife finished with 800 grit sand paper:



Green compound:



Blue:



Yellow compound:

 

I found these high mirror polish konosuke knives and thought for the high price they commanded for being high mirror, your spending more money one what looked to be a pain if it didnt hold up.

http://shop.knifewear.com/japanese-chef-knives-konosuke-mirror

Actually I was testing what would happen if you moved a thread with pictures in it both uploaded and url'd, but I was curious about the knife too

 

I had one of those. Most beautiful knife I've ever seen. So beautiful I couldn't make myself use it, as I'm pretty sure I could never re-create that finish. Yes, I'm weird.

 

Not weird at all I had the same thought the second I saw the video

 

I could get by with it as a house knife but I don't buy house knives. I use what I buy. I'm not one to let things sit

 

The part I dislike about mirror polish is it shows every little smudge and finger print; just like an actual mirror.

And his name is Salty.

 

On honyaki blades it may hold up better. On softer cladding like the HIromoto, those become easily scratched.

 

Dang, I have never seen those kono mirror knives before, that is something else....they claim its all done by hand....not sure I beleive it, but a spectacular finish regardless.

 

done by hand,.... with power tools

 

Guys it is possible to make it by hand but I do not recommend it. Once I tried to mirror polish my Fujiwara Kanefusa Yanagiba. It took me few days and LOADS of elbow grease. Is it worth it? Definitely no. I used sand papers up to 2500 grit and then 3M Wet or Dry polishing cloths up to 1 micron I think. I can't imagine somebody doing the whole knife by hand.

This is the effect after few days. There was no scratches at all. You can do even better thing in 20 minutes with power tools.

 

My Konosuke Mioroshi Deba is mirror polished. After a few years though it's quite patinated. Here she is OOTB.