Finishing S30V`

[srjknives]

47 S30V's huh?

Any particular address you'd like us to send the flowers and sympathy cards to, Jer?

[Jerry Hossom]

I got the Micro Mesh MX belts in yesterday and gave them a quick try today on some small blades. So far, I'm VERY impressed with how well they handle S30V. I'll know more when I do a big blade, but they are definitely promising. They're not going to be cheap though. $9.23 each. I'll let everyone know how they hold up on the big stuff. I will say this. I used the MX600, and got closer to a polish than I've ever been with S30V, and I haven't tried the MX1200 yet! Pretty impressive...!

Thanks Steve, but sympathy doesn't help. I know, I give myself a lot of it...

[tmickley]

Jerry, please do keep us posted on those new belts. I've got 7 or 8 blades in S30V now that are only partially finished because I just got so ####ed mad at them. I'm shopping for ceramic beads now to blast them to hell where they belong. Other than that, it's fine stuff....

[Jerry Hossom]

Let me observe a couple things I learned early on with S30V. Don't let water get on any of your finishing belts. It tends to collect the dust trapped in the belt and turn it into 120 grit scratches. It was REAL frustrating when I was sanding with a 400 grit belt and suddenly found a 60-120 grit scratch that hadn't been there before. When I started wiping the blades after every dip in the water that stopped. I also clean the belts regularly by just running a paper shop towel against them. That helps too.

The Norax belts seem to work best for me if I run the coarser one slow and the finer ones fast (but only after all the visible scratches are gone). It also helps to touch the blade to the buffer a few times while you're sanding to better see the scratches that are still there. For some reason they are difficult to see otherwise.

More on the MicroMesh belts as I learn...

[srjknives]

Thanks, Mr. Hossom. what great tips.

We apprecite your experience and insight.

[jeffj]

Any update on this Jerry?

[Jerry Hossom]

The short answer is "no".

I've walked away from these belts a couple times now, only to come back to them after using Norax for awhile. They are not very resilient, but they certainly cut well while they still have grit. I'll be doing some more work with them in the next couple weeks and may have a better idea after trying a couple things. My present thinking is they may work well used in combination with Norax, alternating between the two. They seem to excel at getting to those scratches that Norax seems to ignore, but benefit from having Norax do most of the work.

I'll let everyone know when I do. My silence has been largely ignorance driven at this point. I almost posted to forget about them twice now, but can't kick the idea that there's more to learn.