To deal with the hardened but horrible looking knife blade I ended with, i setup both the grinder and the buffing wheel. The buffing wheel simply polishes the metal by spinning rapidly. I set it up in the vertical mill because it can spin faster than most of our other machines and more speed is more good. 

the wheel is the fuzzy wheel in the drill chuck. 

Here is the knife after I cleaned it up with a buffing wheel and the grinder.

I then found that using the buffing wheel to clean up the knife at this phase in the process was a rubbish idea and went back to my trusty grinder. Using an abrasive belt rated to about 200 grit I was able to turn the knife into this.

here is the knife after a little bit of work

This is, mind you what the final appearance of the blade will be.

After a bit more work.