Remove scratches on bd-1 blade

[bladerunner22]

Hello, I recently used my spyderco cat knife with bd-1 blade steel and in the process, scratched the blade. Any suggestions on removing , if possible, those scratches. They are not real deep, just surface scratches, but visible.
Thanks
John

[Doc Dan]

Try Flitz and polish it up. That should take out the scratches. Any metal polishing compound (various grits) will be of help.

[Sharp Guy]

About the best way I can think of would be to use a progression of sandpaper, emery cloth, etc. I've tried Flitz, etc on some very light scratches with no luck. Whatever you use needs to be abrasive enough to actually scratch the scratches out. Then you use finer and finer grits and eventually polish it out. The problem is, you can spend a lot of time and effort to try to make the blade look new again. Unless you work the whole blade evenly it may never look like it did when new and the scratches are bound to happen again eventually. I don't like how scratches look either but figure they're part of the history of the knife and don't worry about them.

[Bloke]

I have a few knife "erasers" I use with varying degrees of success.

If you're not familiar with them, they are like a pencil eraser with abrasive mixed with the rubber. They come in various grits, are very cheap to buy and may be of help. :)

[Cor]

Hi,

Have you thought about using polypads? Think they are used in the engineering sector to polish stainless steel to different grades (including food grade which is super shiny and smooth.) If you use the maroon pad a bit and then finish with the white, you should be able to remove any scratches without removing too much metal. If its too smooth, try the green pad which is a bit more coarse. This combination should polish and not remove too much metal. If the scratch is deep, you would need to sand it first otherwise you will polish for days...

Cor

[Doc Dan]

Truthfully, when I was growing up, we boys would brag about our scars. I feel the same way about knives. I leave 'em and love 'em.

[araneae]

Scratches are a badge of honor. If you actually use a knife for work (and you should), it will have its share.

[Xplorer]

I agree with the idea that scratches aren't bad. I say "you can't buy it like that..you have to earn your scratches"....proof that you use it. Same goes for my $2500 mountain bike for example. It's made to be used.

That said, if you want to remove scratches that metal polish won't remove, a progression of sanding grits is the way I've done it successfully and easily. What grit to start with depends on how deep the scratches are. For minor scratches I would go 320, 400, 500 and decide after that if I wanted to go up 800 then 1000. You might find you're OK with just doing a little metal polish after 500 grit. Once you get the blade supported properly so you don't put undue side load on it, you can do the job pretty quickly. For the last 2 grits I suggest you carefully pull the sandpaper in one direction or you will get little squiggly marks. Also beware that the laser-etched Spyderco logo is very shallow and it doesn't take much sanding to obscure or remove the Spyder completely. Proceed slowly. Every time I have ever made a mistake on a knife the answer in retrospect was...I should have been more patient. :D

Best regards,

Chad