Polishing picks?

[Haddo]

Hello. Only my second post as I have been busy reading and ordering tools. So far I have the Southord starter set (PXS-14), Peterson THE CITY PLUS - Government Steel, an original Bogota made by Raimundo and one of the new titanium. The PXS-14 is a good starter set, but I wanted something a little sturdier and I like the Peterson plastic handles.
I want to polish the two sets up and was wondering what is the best way to do this.
I searched and read many different ways. I would prefer a way that doesn't involve power tools. I tend to over do it when they are involved.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Squelchtone]

I did this once to a set of Peterson picks, but I went too heavy on the wet sanding and some of the picks such as the S rake and the short hook got a smaller than they started.

I started with something like 300-something then 600, then 800, then 1000. I bought a multipack of 3M wet sand paper at the Auto Zone or Home Depot (cant remember where), it is grey/slate in color and I used a plastic bowl with some tap water in it for rinsing the grit from the sand paper and to keep it nicely wet. always helps to cut the sand paper into 2 inch by 2 inch squares, drop them in the bowl of water and let them get soak for a few minutes.

Originally, I just wanted to round off the edges, but once you start, it exposes shiny steel, so I just kept going.

Here's what I started with:
http://nynex.s5.com/TOOOL-US-Boston/tools/Peterson-1.jpg

and here's how far I got:
http://nynex.s5.com/TOOOL-US-Boston/tools/IMG_1316.jpg

I think Raimundo once had a good way of sanding by putting the sandpaper business end up on the edge of a desk or workbench, and moving the pick instead of moving the paper. He also had a good way using popsicle sticks and rubber bands, but I'll let you find that in one of the Bogota making threads.

Hope this helps,
Squelchtone

[raimundo]

for curved shapes like getting down in the valleys of a bogota type pick, wrap some sandpaper around some sturdy bamboo chopstick and then hold the chopstick and move the pick on it. for flats like the sides of the pickshafts, of course you use a flat stick with the sandpaper wrapped around it. Ask the hardware where you got the sandpaper for some paint stirring sticks, wrap the sandpaper tightly and rubber band it on the ends.

220 is an agressive sandpaper, that will cut into your workpiece, its good for first sanding that has an element of shapeing involved, you need to watch the effect of this sandpaper as you use it so you don't go to far, and this is hand sanding! not power tooling.

320 is still an aggressive sand paper, and will do final shaping and this is the next level in sanding grit that you use to prepare for the 400 grit.

400 and 600 grit are not aggressive and you don't need to worry about going to far with them, you are only using them to make the marks of the 220 and 320 go away.

wet or dry? dry sanding is easy to look at and know where you are as far as getting done, but dry sanding causes the sandpaper to break down into airborne dust, this is not good for optics, cameras, your glasses, etc, and should be done outdoors or in a dirty metalworking place.

wet does not mean dipped in water, its just a few drops that hold the dust down on the stick, instead of becoming airborne, it stays in the tension of the water that holds it on the stick then as it tumbles and breaks down into finer grit.

new sandpaper is aggressive but as it wears, it becomes finer grit as the grains break into smaller ones. the result is that your metal becomes shinier

[Haddo]

Thanks for the info.
I used a paper wheel I have and it did a nice job with a little metal polish, but I took down my half diamond down a little too far.
It is still usable and I can really tell the difference, but the manual method is safer. For me anyway.