Rust on my Santuoku **UPDATED**

[sloth357]

Sounds like the drying aspect of your cleaning is not done dry enough, possibly with a damp towel sitting around the kitchen. And the kydex WILL keep it more humid, and that will allow rust to begin. On the spine sounds like the knife sits most snug in the sheath there, therefore less air flow and more humid (rust potential).

I hand dry all my knives and then put them in the dish rack, blade up (pointy!), and let them dry overnight BEFORE putting them in my knife block..

IF I see any rust begin, I will do a light simichrome rub down and then wash/dry routine---AND then light oil it.. it's really no big deal and makes me happy to care for knives I enjoy using.

Just wanted to share that after reading this..

And one last though, SELL IT ON THIS FORUM cheers!

[giant1]

Sounds like the drying aspect of your cleaning is not done dry enough, possibly with a damp towel sitting around the kitchen. And the kydex WILL keep it more humid, and that will allow rust to begin. On the spine sounds like the knife sits most snug in the sheath there, therefore less air flow and more humid (rust potential).

I hand dry all my knives and then put them in the dish rack, blade up (pointy!), and let them dry overnight BEFORE putting them in my knife block..

IF I see any rust begin, I will do a light simichrome rub down and then wash/dry routine---AND then light oil it.. it's really no big deal and makes me happy to care for knives I enjoy using.

Just wanted to share that after reading this..

And one last though, SELL IT ON THIS FORUM cheers!

Never had to do any of that to my kitchen knives before and don't really want to start now

Wash and dry should be enough.

[Bishop415]

Jesus. I don't make knives, and I'm new to this forum, but this guy seems like the worst kind of customer there is. He posts in a public forum, basically bad-mouthing a hand made product and then when the maker goes out of his way to offer a solution he falls back to a very passive-aggressive, "Oh hey, I'm disappointed in your product, but I'll take the high road and fix the problem myself" stance, all the while ending every post with a smiley face emoticon. This sort of thing just makes my blood boil, even when it's happening to someone I don't know. You guys are all way too polite.

[Bigfattyt]

I would use a loaded strop. Those marks would come right off.

I would bet there is moisture getting in the sheath. Possibly coming from the handles, or not. Try storing the knife outside the sheath. It looks like it is surface rusting right where the sheath would contact the spine at the thickest part of the knife, and no where else.

All of my cutco knives have discolored, or rust spotted when not put away dry. Or left wet, or in the sink etc.


Comparing any steel that holds a decent edge to cheap kitchen knife steel (420 series, with almost no carbon) is not a good comparison. The 420 series steel won't rust, but it won't hold an edge either. The same stuff that makes better steels hold and edge for longer, makes it more prone to rust.

Here is a direct quote from a website to help you make a choice in kitchen knife steels.

"420 Series
- Low wear resistance, highly stain-resistant, good choice for diving knives, but nothing interesting for the kitchen. Very low Carbon content, less than 0.3%-0.5%, makes it too soft for a useful cuting tool in the kitchen. Used mainly in very cheap kitchen knives. Skip it. Ref - AISI 420 Steel Composition.

440A/440B
- Not too good to begin with, and haven't seen anyone lately using them for the good kitchen knives. Skip it. A lot of low cost mainstream kitchen knvies are made from this or similar steels. Ref - AISI 440A vs. 440B Steel Composition comparison. Cutco uses 440A in their kitchen knives, claiming to be the best, but it's far from it.


AEB-L
- Swedish stainless razor steel. Very pure, fine grained alloy. Virtually identical to Sandvik 13C26 Steel. Slightly less Mn and 0.010% more S, ref - AEB-L vs. 13C26 steel composition comparison. When heat treated properly, produces very small, fine grain, which positively affects edge holding, edge stability and toughness. Devin Thomas uses it in his kitchen knives, with very good results. Working hardness in kitchen and light cutting knives is 61-62HRC.


If I lived near you, I could give it back to you in 2 minutes shiny and new looking. Order a strop, and some polishing compound (as a bonus, you can keep your edges laser sharp on the strop too!) (looks like you already hit it with some sandpaper to polish it, judging by your last photo).




I love Ban's knives and would love to get my grubby mitts on one.

[giant1]

Jesus. I don't make knives, and I'm new to this forum, but this guy seems like the worst kind of customer there is. He posts in a public forum, basically bad-mouthing a hand made product and then when the maker goes out of his way to offer a solution he falls back to a very passive-aggressive, "Oh hey, I'm disappointed in your product, but I'll take the high road and fix the problem myself" stance, all the while ending every post with a smiley face emoticon. This sort of thing just makes my blood boil, even when it's happening to someone I don't know. You guys are all way too polite.

Don't know who you are (nor do I care).......
But you come here and make this your first post - Are you are just a troll looking to stir things up or some kind shill??

Go away and learn some manners.

[giant1]

Here are some pictures for those of you (especially the noob loud mouth) wondering why I did not go to the trouble of sending the knife back to Ban (From Australia to the US)

Ban did the right thing all along and at no point walked away from helping me. Even thought I was not happy with the finish I simply had second thoughts about shipping the knife when I knew that the fix would be simple enough. Knife was polished smooth (almost mirror finish) by me using 1200 grit wet and dry in my spare time. Problem fixed - no more rust.

[MRpink]

Looking good! I like the etch opposite of ban's logo, what's it say?

[Cabra]

Jesus. I don't make knives, and I'm new to this forum, but this guy seems like the worst kind of customer there is. He posts in a public forum, basically bad-mouthing a hand made product and then when the maker goes out of his way to offer a solution he falls back to a very passive-aggressive, "Oh hey, I'm disappointed in your product, but I'll take the high road and fix the problem myself" stance, all the while ending every post with a smiley face emoticon. This sort of thing just makes my blood boil, even when it's happening to someone I don't know. You guys are all way too polite.

Well done for your first post, maybe you should introduce your self next time for a first post.
You should think that some of the guys in this forum really respect Ban, his work and other members of this forum. Maybe that is why they are polite.....dont know, I might be wrong.

I would use a loaded strop. Those marks would come right off.

I would bet there is moisture getting in the sheath. Possibly coming from the handles, or not. Try storing the knife outside the sheath. It looks like it is surface rusting right where the sheath would contact the spine at the thickest part of the knife, and no where else.

All of my cutco knives have discolored, or rust spotted when not put away dry. Or left wet, or in the sink etc.


Comparing any steel that holds a decent edge to cheap kitchen knife steel (420 series, with almost no carbon) is not a good comparison. The 420 series steel won't rust, but it won't hold an edge either. The same stuff that makes better steels hold and edge for longer, makes it more prone to rust.

Here is a direct quote from a website to help you make a choice in kitchen knife steels.

"420 Series
- Low wear resistance, highly stain-resistant, good choice for diving knives, but nothing interesting for the kitchen. Very low Carbon content, less than 0.3%-0.5%, makes it too soft for a useful cuting tool in the kitchen. Used mainly in very cheap kitchen knives. Skip it. Ref - AISI 420 Steel Composition.

440A/440B
- Not too good to begin with, and haven't seen anyone lately using them for the good kitchen knives. Skip it. A lot of low cost mainstream kitchen knvies are made from this or similar steels. Ref - AISI 440A vs. 440B Steel Composition comparison. Cutco uses 440A in their kitchen knives, claiming to be the best, but it's far from it.


AEB-L
- Swedish stainless razor steel. Very pure, fine grained alloy. Virtually identical to Sandvik 13C26 Steel. Slightly less Mn and 0.010% more S, ref - AEB-L vs. 13C26 steel composition comparison. When heat treated properly, produces very small, fine grain, which positively affects edge holding, edge stability and toughness. Devin Thomas uses it in his kitchen knives, with very good results. Working hardness in kitchen and light cutting knives is 61-62HRC.


If I lived near you, I could give it back to you in 2 minutes shiny and new looking. Order a strop, and some polishing compound (as a bonus, you can keep your edges laser sharp on the strop too!) (looks like you already hit it with some sandpaper to polish it, judging by your last photo).




I love Ban's knives and would love to get my grubby mitts on one.

Good info.

Here are some pictures for those of you (especially the noob loud mouth) wondering why I did not go to the trouble of sending the knife back to Ban (From Australia to the US)

Ban did the right thing all along and at no point walked away from helping me. Even thought I was not happy with the finish I simply had second thoughts about shipping the knife when I knew that the fix would be simple enough. Knife was polished smooth (almost mirror finish) by me using 1200 grit wet and dry in my spare time. Problem fixed - no more rust.

Looks good but I think a light rub with scotch brite with your usual kitchen soap and water will have done the trick.





So, now that the problem is solved maybe Ban or one of the mods should close this one.

[giant1]

Looks good but I think a light rub with scotch brite with your usual kitchen soap and water will have done the trick.

I don't agree. IMO the finish was just not fine enough, I think kitchen knives should have at least a high polish if not mirror finish, this makes them easier to keep clean as well as keep dry. I did a fairly quick job of sanding back by starting with 800 grit then moving to 1200 but I really should have started with 240 or maybe 400 get rid of some of the deeper scratches left by the belt finish and then go to 800 , 1200 and 2000 if I was really after a top finish.

Alas - I was after functionality in this instance

[HikingMano]

Bit late to this party; I'm glad to see it's turned out well.

I understand giant1's concern and annoyance. He wanted a custom kitchen user that performs better than the average cheaper production kitchen knife (in terms of edge-holding and retention) while not requiring more care in the corrosion department. For kitchen use, it can be quite annoying for some to baby a knife. I don't mind carefully washing, drying by hand, further air-drying overnight, and then coating with mineral oil my high carbon outdoor knives that get used on a weekly or longer basis. But to give an everyday kitchen user the same treatment is... undesirable.

I must admit I am pretty surprised at the rust with this AEBL knife, given giant1's treatment of the knife. By normal standards, it should have been "good enough" to prevent your average stainless steel from rusting. Especially if AEBL is said to be similar to Sandvik 13C26, a steel with which I have never had a problem with rust. It's interesting that the steel rusts so much in one anecdotal case and not in the other. Most stainless I've used haven't been too troublesome. In constrast, I've found rust on O1 blades after a couple of weeks in storage following the treatment described above. I shudder to think about what would happen with an O1 blade not properly cared for.

Anyway, I don't see this thread as griping. Giant1 was disappointed with how easily AEBL rusts in his environment and hands and sought Ban's advice. Ban, given his own experience with the steel, was surprised. As expected, he offered to do what he could to fix the problem for Giant1. Furthermore, Ban started looking towards the bigger picture of AEB-L usage in his kitchen knives by attempting to identify the potential conditions that may bring about the same problem for other users. It looks like further testing may be advantageous in that regard. Giant1 did not want to go through the hassle of shipping the knife back to the states, especially if he could do the short term fix himself (simple polishing to remove existing surface rust). He accepted that the problem is simply dependent on the steel and will thus require a little more maintenance and care in his environment than he had anticipated, and Giant acknowledged and expressed appreciation for Ban's willingness to please his customer. To his credit, Giant1 went further to form a hypothesis and then test it for a potential long-term solution (mirror polishing the entire blade to discourage rust formation), which, so far, seems like it did the trick. I don't think he could have handled it any better Nor do I think Ban could have offered any more.

Cheap stainless steels offer (in general) great corrosion resistance at the cost of lower edge-holding associated with less carbon. On the other end of the spectrum, high carbon steels offer (in general) great edge-holding at the cost of corrosion resistance. All this is common knowledge. AEB-L may fall close enough to the high-carbon end of the spectrum vs. cheap stainless steels (e.g. 420, AUS8) that it does require a bit more care (mirror polishing, storing truly dry) to prevent corrosion as a tradeoff for the better edge performance. I'm still puzzled by the difference between AEB-L and 13C26 though, if the AEB-L did indeed rust so easy under relatively mundane conditions. But I'm no metallurgist....

Kudos to both Giant1 and Ban. I see this as a successful maker-customer interaction



ETA: One more note, I agree: your average consumer scotchbrite pad (green) is nowhere near fine enough for that level of polish. Washing a knife with a scotchbrite will scratch polished blade quite nicely... I learned that one the hard way

[giant1]

Thank you HikingMano.

[Bigfattyt]

I have to say, it takes cahones to take sandpaper to a custom knife.

More importantly, it takes patience. I just don't seem to have the patience to hand satin, or refinish a knife.

I have spent days and days re-profiling big choppers by hand, but for some reason refinishing the whole blade by hand is just too much work for me.

Kudos, the job looks great!

[giant1]

For those of you that may be interested I just thought I would post an update of how the knife is going after about 3 weeks of use.

There are no rust spots appearing anymore. The knife is used and washed the same way as before. We kept it out of the kydex sheath for a while and then I decided to test if the sheath was causing the problem and I can say without doubt that it is NOT.

So in the end, my conclusion is that the smoother almost mirror finish has fixed the problem, there is no rough surface for moisture to hang onto and it is easier to wipe dry.

[Ban]

I am glad that it worked out for you.