Polishing your clip?

[Trihonda]

OK, I've seen it in pictures and I like it. I don't feel the need to do it to my new knives, but I have a couple of older EDC knives with chipped clips. I'd love to make em shiny, all purdy and polished. How do I go about it. What do I need? I have a bench grinder, and wanted to get a buffer wheel for it, but I don't really want to right now. I'd rather do the polishing before I could get a buffer wheel. Thanks for any tips.

[Fred Sanford]

I just take my clips off and then use 200 grit sand paper to get everything off. I do it all by hand.

Then I take 400 grit sandpaper to it. I just keep sanding and sanding and sanding. :)

Then I take 600 grit sandpaper to it and I sand some more. Then I use 600 grit sandpaper while the clip and the sandpaper are both wet. I keep rinsing and resanding.

I try to keep most all the finishing sanding (400 grit and up) all in one direction.

Total time is about 45 minutes to an hour for me. When finished my clips look like the pic below. :)

[squad314]

Nice job David!

[ousanas]

I polished mine with my dremel, and buffed it too, just took it off the knife and it took maybe 10 minutes...

[J Smith]

I use a Dremel with a fine buffing pad,then poshish with green adns lastly blue polish compound.

[Manix Guy 2]

If you want the flat look bead or shot blast , then polish with Dremel to smooth bottom side . Just got a new wheel for drill but it may be too strong of wire . New Delica / Endura clips seem to have a different hue after treatment from wire / polish but look very nice .

[gordonk]

I just drop my clips into acetone for a few minutes, use 400 wet/dry and go back and forth between soaking and sanding. When most of the flats are done, I just soak my wet/dry and sand out the tougher spots. This usually leaves a pretty even satin'ish finish. If I want it "shinier", I move to 600 to get that matt finish.

- gord

[Trihonda]

Thanks. I worked a little on my Renegade clip last night. used a random orbital sander to w/ 220 grit paper to get the majority of the paint off (in about 2 minutes). Used the paper (wet) to get a nice brushed look. Since I didn't have any finer grit paper, I'll live with the current finish. When I'm out, I'll check into getting finer paper and buffing comound. I'd prefer a tad shinier look.

Thanks.

[jhillas]

I get very satisfactory results with a 30 second visit to the wire brush wheel on my bench grinder.

[fellyjr]

Here's a few pic's of the delica clip i just did with my dremel. It turned out good enough for an edc.

[Bodieism]

With some Mothers Mag & Aluminum Polish and a dremel I did this in just a couple minutes:



Here a picture of the polish I used:



On my Military clip I used some 1000 grit sand paper and took the black off by hand. It took about 20-25 minutes or so that way. Using the dremel and polish was much easier and looked alot better to. Its hard to see but the clip I used the dremel on is so polished it looks just like a mirror (I've actually used it to look into so I could take my contacts out).

[Simple Man]

I didn't polish it as it was already being SS, but I did take a plain ole' permanent marker to the bug and then wiped the excess off with my thumb. It darkened up the outline nicely and it seems like it will stay a while.

[fellyjr]

That looks pretty good SM! It's amazing the many uses of a Sharpie.