I love the mirror finish but it is not great for a user because it shows fingerprints and takes a long time to do. To actually get the surface FLAT and all the scratches gone to a 600 grit (I plan to get to 2000 eventually)on both sides of my SH-E took about 40 hours even with the bench grinder and dremel. You can take out a lot of the big scratches with the dremel but getting it flat is all hand sanding and believe me they are no where near flat to start with.
Here is a link to the method of polishing I use although I use the dremel to make parts faster.
http://www.arscives.com/bladesign/hybridpolish.htmI will try to get the hamon on the Desert jack to pop better and then take some photos.
The scotchbrite finish is really the cleverest finish for a nice user. It is good looking ,hides fingerprints and scratches well and is very easy to fix after a hard chopping session. Mercworx uses it on their very expensive blades.
