Handmade Knife

How to polish a stainless steel knife?

Ok so my Filipino Handmade Balisong came in yesterday and there was a bit of rust at the tip and at the middle of the blade (when I bought it in the Philippines it was so shiny, like mirror shiny, idk what happened) now I heard from someone that I should stick the blade to a raw potato and leave it there overnight, my mistake was I took out the blade prematurely and stuck it back in the potato on the raw spot. When I took it out and rinsed the blade today it was covered in black stuff and when I washed it, a white residue covered the blade that it now looks cloudy and stuff, how do i restore it?

"Stainless" steel is a misnomer. It simply means it does not develop red rust as soft iron does. The steel STILL corrodes, but in a different fashion than soft iron. A stel is made "stainless" through the addition of chromium as an alloying agent. Any metal cleaner like Brasso mentioned above will do to remove any oxides from the surface. It is not the base metal which is discolored, but rather the oxide layer on the surface. Remove the oxide layer by a polish or use of a grinding compound and it will expose the base metal, which will then develop a new layer of chromium dioxide (so thin it is clear so you can see the shine of the base metal through it). Jeweler's Rouge and Crocus cloth are nothing more than a very fine grade of grinding compound, which is something like powdered silicon carbide suspended in a light grease or heavy oil. Chromium dioxide is very difficult to remove because without abrasion, it is mostly chemically inert and impervious to solvents, and as soon as you do abrade it and remove it, it rapidly reforms, almost instantly in fact.

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