What is the easiest, most effective way of changing a bright,shiny,polished finish on a blade to a flat/matt more realistic finish?

By the way, welcome to myArmoury.com Joel! This is the best site. Very informative.

Thanks Chad. I would be a little worried about unwanted non-historically correct designs. :eek: Is there a way to tell which way to go with the scratch pads/sand paper? What is the best grain to use? I would think going from the guard to the tip would be the best direction for the sword but armour? :confused:

Try 220 wet sandpaper as starting point. Finer grits will give you a softer satin look. Be very careful of the direction of your strokes, as stated in the other response. The paper will last much longer if you do use it wet. I am currently working on a hanwei 'bastard' sword which comes with a polished fuller. I used 220 dry to reduce the shine to that of the surrounding blade, much better to my eye. You really can't mess it up to much, if you see swirl marks just go over it again with the paper,using a direction consistent with your desired results.

I think 220 is way to aggressive for any kind of final finish. On any sword. You can do a lot of damage using 220 paper and some hard finger pressure. One of the advantages to the scotch brite pads (there are also many similar products made by 3M specifically for sanding including sanding sponges) is that the sponge prevents you from hitting it too hard with finger pressure.

Although I do have a shapton 120 the 220 is definitely THE workhorse for grinding and shaping. Its the basic grit level for anyone wanting to remove a little metal but in a controlled fashion. 220 in my experience you have to be very careful with applying even pressure the whole stroke or you will definitely get an uneven result.

IMHO, leaving a sword blade at 220 will leave too much roughness and therefore too much area exposed on the sword surface and can exacerbate long term corrosion. Try using even just a 20 power handlens on a sword after 220.

Of course this is all my personal opinion, is not a criticism, and your mileage may vary. But back to the original question the important thing in this case is to work the process in reverse, i.e. I would start high and work lower. You are doing the process in reverse of a normal polish......so start high and work backwards until you get what you want. Remember, "the shine" comes from the uniformity of the surface polish, the more scratches, the more diffused the light coming off the steel. I would start with a wet paper 1500, and then if you have to - work back towards 440.