Satin finnish

You've got another convert. Not sure what it is about the Mobil One but is does finish like a dream

Thanks again for the tip
 
Since this thread has gone on for 11 pages I thought I would give it a go. I thought I would compare it against my usual method of WD-40 so I did one side of the blade with my old method and one side with the Mobil-1 method. I used some Castrol Grand Prix Synthetic Motorcycle Oil that I had spare. I have only done the first grit today P240 after a 240 grit post HT cleanup on the grinder. I found it more difficult to see if I still had scratches from the grinder using the oil, I used more paper using the oil too and I took about 1/2 longer on the oil side so that makes it wd-40 2 oil 0. Now for the plus of the oil. I found it easier to clean all the black gunk off my hands using the oil and the finish was definitely cleaner using the oil. I could still see swirls and J scratches on oil side but the was less of them for sure so that is 3-2 wd-40 vs oil. Next time I work on this knife I'll continue going up the grits and see how each side progresses. I suspect that I'll keep using wd-40 for the lower grits (at least the first one) and switch to the oil for the later grits in the future. For the records I am trying it on an 8 inch blade.
 
Of course you can use what you want, Alistair , and why not, but I didn't say to try the Castor Grande Prix. So now we know the Windex works better than it. I did say to try the Mobil 1 . Why not use just water instead of the Windex? The water doesn't do the same job as the Windex. Frank
 
Frank Niro said:
Of course you can use what you want, Alistair , and why not, but I didn't say to try the Castor Grande Prix. So now we know the Windex works better than it. I did say to try the Mobil 1 . Why not use just water instead of the Windex? The water doesn't do the same job as the Windex. Frank
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Sure but what makes Mobil 1 better than any other synthetic oil? I thought I would use what was at hand and the finish was definitely better with the oil but there were downsides to using it too. I guess we'll see how it goes at the higher grit grades.

Alistair
 
Alistair. The oil you tried didn't work very well you told me. I believe the Mobile 1 does, but I can't tell you why any more than you may not be able to tell me why the Windex works better than water. By the way, I did take a peak into your web site. Your work looks plenty good ! Frank
 
Many thanks To Frank!!!!!

Frank,
I picked up a quart of Mobile 1 on Thursday, Friday night I finally got to give it a try. I have got to say it blew it me away!!!! With freakin 80 GRIT!!!! I went to 120 grit and was considering stopping there because it looked so good. Better than I have ever done and so much faster. It took one side of a small blade about 10 minutes to get to 220 grit and looked as close to perfect as I have ever gotten. This newbie here just jumped years in finishing ability, saying thanks doesn't seem to be enough.

As for all the other times you posted with no response, all I can say is, "that's their loss", stay with the dog house! It's a different atmosphere here, most of the same people, but different...., somehow.

Also, I would like to comment on Nick Wheeler's post, it's a lesson in it's self. Closing your mind to new things is dumb. I will keep that in mind myself, to be open to try new techniques, tips, and ideas. Anything to further my ability to make the best knives I can possibly make. So thanks so much both of you. I can't say it enough how easy it is using the Mobile 1, it even helps loosen the scale after heat treat. I hate getting the scale off, it's such a pain in the butt, but the M1 takes it right off. So again, I will say thanks Frank, and I will ask if you have any more simple tips like that to please pass them on, I'll try anything.

BTW, I have admired your knives for sometime, the first time I saw one of your knives was on eBay, it had a nitre bluing on mosaic Damascus, it was AWESOME. To far out of my price range, but I drooled over it for a couple of weeks. Tell me, do you use the Brownells nitre bluing salts? If not, can you give me a tip on how you get the beautiful electric blue coloring in your bluing? Again thank you for such wonderful advice. Please send MORE!!!!!!
Thanks,Rex
 
Rex. You make my heart jump !!! I get such a charge from people saying thank you. If you handed me a $100 bill it wouldn't do near the same for me.
So okay I will give you what I have on the Damascus colouring. It's a simple as can be. I do it on top of the stove on a thin metal stainless spatula that I made up out of some .050 thickness, but I'm sure any clean metal plate will work. I have etched almost every Damascus blade and bolster I do and then clean them on a buffing wheel. Before doing the heat on the stove thing, I make sure the Damascus is very clean. For me on an electric stove I set the heat to a bit higher than half , lay the part on the spatula and wait to see some colour start. On a blade the tip will take more heat than the recasso since the tip is off the plate. I will move the spatula around to try to see an even colour although you may like the blended colours that can happen. I may exen move part of the spatula off of the element.You will see light gold, then to a sort of brown to purple and then blue. On blades I turn them over when I see the gold. As soon as you think you have or after a bit of doing them, you think you are going to get the colour you want take the Damascus off the spatula on place on another clean surface to cool. If the colours go to silver or you don't like the colour that you did you can go back to the buffer and start again. Only thing is each trip to the buffer will reduce the grind lines a bit. This is a very thin surface treatment. Renaisace wax works great but most of the other cleaners will strip it off. It does work very well to prevent futher oxidizing.
In the next weeks I hope to send material to Boss Dog Tracy on my flat, or hollow, blade grinding jig. You can do all sorts of blade shapes and sizes, like Peresians, drop points, clips, spear points and Warncliffs. Tracy has already told me he would do the posting. I would add the remarks. I don't do pictures or have tried to post them.This is so simple to make and use, it will be another of those"why bother to try it, it's to simple it won't work" things. I was wondering if I would go ahead with presenting this but I did just now decided I would after reading what you wrote !!! Frank
 
Hi Frank,

You make amazingly generous contributions of your hard earned knowledge.

Thanks very much, Craig
 
Thank you Craig !!! There are a lot of fine givers in this site who will willingly give what they know, and there will be lots more coming in. Frank
 
Frank , I want to thank you for the Mobile 1 tip . I have always admired hand finishes but had never done one until I read your Mobil 1 tip . haven't got it perfect yet but I'm gaining on it. I have also admired the damascus bluing that you do so I'll be trying that also soon.

Thanks again , 2thumbs
Joe
 
Hi Frank

I found this about using Mobile 1 last night, went and read all the post. So I went and got a quart to try tonight. Mobil 1 will be what I use from now on.
I have used Cool Tool II for several years. I can tell a differance between them.

One of the problems with Cool Tool II is it gums up the spray can, with Mobile 1 that wont be a problem now.

Rick
 
Ricky, you do some great looking knives with very fine finishing ! I'm pleased this meathod of satin finishing is going to help in your work! I particularly like that blue folder. No heat colouring needed there. Frank
 
Hey Frank,

Thanks for the tip. I haven't been to town yet to buy a quart of Mobil 1, but tonight decided to try some power steering fluid for the heck of it. It worked better than the WD40 I had been using, but I still plat to try the Mobil 1.

Just a tip for you guys I figured out tonight--I found a good way to apply the oil to the blade is to use one of those large swabs from Tandy Leather that they sell to apply leather dye. I don't care for them for dying leather, but they work well to put a dollop of oil on the blade for hand sanding.

Nathan
 
Frank, I finally got to trying mobil 1 with a knife, and WOW! I went from a 220 to a 400 grit finish using only about a half sheet of sandpaper, and only about an hour of time! I would take a picture, but I dropped my camera the other day, and the knife is being clamped right now.

It's by far the best finish I've gotten on a knife, and aside from a sore thumb and forearm, it's not too tedious.
 
Hi Mike.
You didn't say if it was hollow or flat grinds you are doing. In any case let me encourage you to se a backing block. I go to 16X on the grinder then to 220 , 400. Frank
 
Frank Niro said:
Hi Mike.
You didn't say if it was hollow or flat grinds you are doing. In any case let me encourage you to se a backing block. I go to 16X on the grinder then to 220 , 400. Frank
Click to expand...

It was a flat grind. I was using a small piece of wood, but I think it was too thin to hold comfortably.
 
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