[jimmontg]

Dave; blue and rust remover will totally ruin your mirror polish. The blue and rust remover uses an acid that will satin finish your blade. It will look like it was sandblasted with talcum powder. Take some 600 grit sandpaper and sand the rust off and use your diamond compound on 1200 grit sandpaper to blend it in and repolish. OOOO steel wool should not scratch a hardened knife btw. I use it to apply blueing to my carbon knives and it doesn't scratch them. Try to mirror polish a coupon and put blueing on it and buff it out with clean steel wool OOOO is very good at getting a shine. I have mirror polished a blade and blued it and because it was so polished you could hardly tell what color it was as it reflected everything. Outside it was like the blue sky or green grass.

Like Ray though, I almost never mirror polish a knife, it scratches too easy and is basically for a show knife, as a using knife is going to get scratched sooner or later. I will shine up the blade with the diamond, but not to a complete mirror finish.