I am relatively new to the forum and during the past week have spent many hours devouring the incredible information in the various forums. Of special interest were the discussions on grinding and cross graining in earlier posts in this forum.
I have been collecting TR daggers for many years, since they tie into my passion for knives as a custom knife maker. One of the custom knife shows I participate in every year is held at the Klingenmuseum in Solingen. When the show was first started by the museum, many of the locals attended. Since I do all my work completely by hand, I attracted the attention of an older gentleman who was a apprentice knife grinder / polisher near the end of the war. Since I collect TR daggers, I was very interested. He explained the use of the very large & wide grinding wheels to achieve the flat grind on the blades.
Of speial was interest polshing process. He explained that the face of the relatively large polishing wheel was not flat, but tapered back at a 45 degree angle to provide a almost flat and wide surface. The face of the wheel was covered with thick walrus leater. This explains the parallel polishing lines along the entire length of the blade. He also explained that the crossgraining was not something that the polishers aimed for, but was a result of contamination from the grinding process reaching the polishing wheels, unavoidable under the factory conditions. It is interesting that the feature we admire in TR blades was an annoyance to the polishers. When we finished our conversation he invided me to his home to show me some of the polishing wheel he had rescued after the war as well as some of the blades he had ground and polished during his apprenticeship. Unfortunatly I was not able to take him up on the offer. Sadly I have not seen him at any of the later shows, I would love to get some photographs of his treasures. This is one of my first posts, hope the subject is not inappropriate.
Wolfgang

Wow! Fascinating. Sad you couldn't meet with the gentleman.

Hello Wolfgang :

Welcome to the forum.
That is an interesting story.
Thank you for sharing it with us.

Welcome to the forum Wolfgang! Geoff.

Very interesting post to kick-off with Wolfgang

This is an interesting topic as many people debate that the crossgraining was an intentional finish to the blade, others contend that its an unwanted remnant of the grind as you've explained... Pity you lost touch with the guy, these first-hand accounts are most valuable these days.

Thanks for the story, Red

The final blade finish probably depended on the size of the maker, the size of the dagger order and the individual craftsman. I have a couple of near mint SA's from smaller makers with original mirror polished blades. Only very fine crossgraining appears and you have to look for it. These blades are beautiful and are quite the contrast to the typical heavily crossgrained piece.

OK, I am VERY interested in this discussion and hove NO reason to doubt anything that has been said previosly except for 1 thing...
Here are a few pics of a Wusthof carving knive (made in 2006) that I have as a kitchen knife. All of the knives are the same.
Clear, significant crossgrainging (even if the pics are not very clear).
So my question is; if crossgrain was a "mistake" why are they STILL struggeling with this problem?????

SWEET crisp 100% crossgrain, NOTHING like 2006 manufacturing quality!!!

#3

Not showing up here.

They heard that we love crossgraining and decided to try to corner this share of the market.

Crossgraining was not a "mistake". It was on the finished product for most makers. Apparently however, some firms and/or individuals took the process a step further by polishing the blade. We must keep in mind that these are hand made pieces. Until the war decimated their ranks many of these blades were made by expert craftsmen in small cottage firms. The blade-making art was passed down through generations in Solingen.

cross graining is the result of imcomplete polishing!!! simple as that..

Sorry,


Rod

OK maybe, but my kitchen knives by Wusthof are VERY expensive (as kitchen knives go) and are known as premium cutlery (many say the best in the world manufactured today), I have a hard time believing that they are incompletely polished and that this is a mark of poor quality...
These ARE highly finifhed and expensive items!

Well I decided to go directly to the horses mouth. Since modern german kitchen knives have crossgrain, they should be able to tell us why.
So, I called Wusthof's American headquarters this AM and asked about crossgraining, their response: "What is crossgraining?" After a short description of what I was talking about she said "Oh! ya I have seen that but I have no idea about it! This is not a "standard question!"
So through her I got the e-mail addresses for the people who "should know" in germany and have sent them e-mails with several questions. If they take the time to read and answer, it should be very interesting...
I also sent e-mails to Henkels.
I will post there responses here, if and when I recieve them.

I got am e-mail from Henkels, their rep. says that he does not know the answer to my questions buy WILL research it, find out and get back with me...

Interesting..will be neat to hear their response. Of course, I'm sure that you didn't mention the 3rd Reich connection...

Hmmmm... I think I forgot to mention that...

A couple of observations: “Crossgraining” is what in various industries would be known as a “satin” or “brush” type finish. It is cheaper and faster to do than a high polish finish. My sense of it is that the cost controls imposed by the RZM would have been sufficient cause just by itself to force makers to discontinue the high polish type finishes. And while it varied by maker, unlike the daggers which went to crossgraining relatively early, many combat bayonets and other items for the Wehrmacht continued to have high polish finish into early 1942 (some Walther P-38 pistols are I think an excellent example having a distinctive “brush finish” transition phase). And just about the time the manufacture of dress blades was discontinued as a hindrance to the war effort. We see the quality of finish applied to combat arms rapidly degrade to a more utilitarian mode in an effort to speed up production.

PS: Well done “satin” or “brush” finishes are not only faster and cheaper to apply than a good quality high polish finish, they have other advantages. They also tend to hide or minimize minor imperfections which reduces the rejection/rework rate for finished items. Which is why that type of finish (IMO) is commonly seen with many items including modern day cutlery. FP

Thanks for your input FP. As always a clear educated and well though out response.
Thanks,
Johnny

I have been making high grade custom knives for many years. See attached photo of pocket knives with contrasting satin/polished finishes. Most collectors request a satin finish on the blade, mainly becouse a perfect satin finish is much more difficult to achieve than a polished (buffed) finish. To get the perfect satin finish the blade has to be polished to the point where only a light buffing would be required. The satin finish must be applied with all the lines running in one direction. The problem with satin finishes is that even a very light mark which would hardly show on a highly polished blade will stick out like a sore thumb on the satin finish.
I agree that most of the cross graining on knives produced today are a result of an abbreviated polishing process. A higher grade polish would add to the cost and would be of little benefit to a using knife. It is interesting to note that most of the larger TR dagger manufacturers also produced pocket knives, some models with with flawless highly polished blades.
Wolfgang

Sorry, for some reason I can not post the pic.