I just realized something, and perhaps this sounds very stupid, but I just honoustly don't now.

In Japan, swordpolishing is done with several stones, each one bringing the sword's polish to a new level, untill it is done.

However, I've never known how swords were polished in Europe, or any other part of the world for that matter, during the centuries. Their are lot's of articles, both in print and online, on how blades were forged, on how the cross and pommel were made, how the entire sword was assembled...... and that's it. Article done. Never have I read anything on sword polishing in medieval times, or how the Celts did it, or the Romans.

Like I said, perhaps this is a very stupid question, maybe I've been reading the wrong articles. But I really would like to know.

Grinding and polishing was done in steps (talking about high medieval/rennaissance here):
Great waterpowered stone wheels (about 2 m in diameter and some 30-40 cm thick) were set spinning by water wheels. A very effective grinding apparatus! The blade was supported across the knees or thighs of the grinder on a wooden board or tool similar to the haft of a scythe. In later times blade grinders are shown lying over the wheels on planks.

I visited a grinding shop in Solingen that dates from the 16th C (or earlier-can´t remember right now). On the ground floor were the great weels for corse grinding, next floor smaller stones of finer grit, next floor up, wooden wheels with emery compound fixed to the surface with hide glue (you can make the surface of the wooden wheel profiled to match certain blade sections or details-very clevr and effective) Polishing was done on leather faced wheels with a compound of oil, animal fat and some polishing medium. The exact mix of the polishing paste was a trade secret of the polisher, jealously guarded. You can use aluminium oxide, iron oxide, fine sand or even arsenic (!) for fine polishing.
This grinding shop had been in use up till modern times. They got electricity in the 1950´s...It is a beautifull place.
They still have a medieval polishing wheel used for finishing swords. It had lames of walrus hide as flaps sitting tightly arranged radially between two wooden "shields". The leather flaps were secured by dovetails locking in grooves on the insides of the wooden sides. The diameter was about 1.3 m and it was about 20 cm across the gringind surface. I was told such a set up would outlive two or three generations of polishers. Walrus hide is tough.
It was still covered by coagulated polishing goo...

The trick is using revolving wheels of stone, wood and or leather plus compounds of fat+oil in varying proportions, binding finer and finer grits of emery powders. It works exactly like any modern grinding belt or felt disc, only it takes more maintenance.
In some situations a profiled wheel wil be much more efficient, but then you need to make many very similar blades for that to be a good idea.

In earlier times we might guess they did much the same but with less use of big water wheels, more relying on manpower and working time.

Thanks Peter! I was hoping you'd answer this one.

*sigh*

Isn't the history of technology beautiful? :D

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Here's a 14th century pic of a grinding wheel in action.

Great Peter! Now how about the end user? Did he resharpen his swords? How? Or did he just drop it off to be reground?

Thanks Peter. One of the reasons I ask is because there was a rather large whet stone found among the Sutton Hoo graves but I know of no similar finds.

I came across this post whilst searching for information on historical polishing methods, and all my questions are now answered! Thanks Peter, and huzzah for myArmoury!

Thanks for the info!
Now I know what to use our old millstones for :D
Btw with these huge stones it wold have been quite easy to get nice big flat surfaces and the idea of leather wheels is really high-tech! Were the polishing weels as big as the grinding ones?
Regards!

Note the troughs often shown beneath the grindstones. Seems they were often wetgrinders, which helps maintain the temper and reduce dust. Much nicer that way than a lot of modern equipment.

Hm. Now that we've got fairly comprehensive information on European methods, I'm wondering if somebody could drop by and comment about the Arabic, persian, Chinese, African, and other practices in sword-polishing.