A hand tool, generally a length of hardened steel, shaped and sized according to need, with a highly polished surface to burnish or polish metal to a smooth bright finish. Burnishers may be straight or curved, flat, oval or round, or formed with a burnishing foot and provided with a tang to fit in a wooden handle. A pivot burnisher or pivot file is double-ended or sided, one surface being finished as a very fine cross-grained file, the other being of the same shape but finished for burnishing.