I Need Polishing Advice, Please!

[Chasing]

Hi everyone! I've just joined recently but I've been lurking about for about a month and have a few questions about polishing that I'd like to get others' points of view on. Feel free to add to/correct anything I have here, I've been admiring nihonto from afar for a long time now but only recently started actually learning about it, so it is what it is.

 

First - everything I've been reading about polishing has an introduction that can be summarized as "don't you dare do it you're going to ruin EVERYTHING you absolute nincompoop", so I'm going into it with the expectation that no matter how careful I am, something will go wrong.

 

Now that that's out the way - I've bought a few whetstones that are 3000/8000 grit and a nagura that's 8000 (assuming these are Japanese grit #s so I err on the safe side), and I have no intention of doing any reshaping. I know I can't be trusted with that, so it's going to be straight polishing to minimize risk.

 

What I haven't done yet is buy the oil/supplies to finish it with. I've read Choji oil is what I need, but I'm wondering if there's a favored company to get it from, and what best to apply it with?

 

Next, I have four blades total. Three of them are unmarked, unpolished (combat-polished?) "mystery swords" that I picked up fairly inexpensively (they may be awesome! they may be junk!), and one is a signed blade from WWII with the Seki blossom mark.

 

Because I trust the guides and am assuming something will go wrong - and because I don't want to risk ruining one of the blades I bought to keep, be they trash or treasure - I'm tempted to buy a new blade. I was thinking of the cheaper, likely-machined WWII-era army/police swords that are always up on eBay for $200-$300 so that worst case I basically can't "ruin" it, and best case I make it a decent-looking sharpy-shiny and I have a chance of just reselling it and getting that money back.

 

What does everyone think? I can't think of anything else to practice with that has naki, and I figure at least getting used the overall curved shape is better than nothing, but I'm very open to suggestions.

[PNSSHOGUN]

Sorry but you simply will not receive any advice here. Amateur polishing is a no-go topic and a perfect way to ostracized yourself immediately from most collectors. You are better off seeking advice on some of the forums specializing in modern martial art swords.

[Brian]

What John said.