Doc one of the reasons I bought the RC-4 was to have my 'bombproof', beater, survival knife. With the coating, it was completely maintenance free. Stick it in the sheath wet - who cares, next time I cut something it will scrap that rust off the edge easily.
Now I have to be more careful with it. The first time I took it on a trip all shiney, I would wipe it (usually just with my shirt or something) before sheathing it. Admittedly I was on the boat, and after a while everything on your body is wet, so wiping it down just spreads the water around. So it was getting rust fuzz and pits nightly that I would endevour to scrub off with a green scrubby. I don't mind the light rust fuzz, but I don't like seeing rust spot/pits forming. So I was performing much more maintenance than I liked.
By day 2, I ended up cutting up one of my firestraws and rubbing the PJC on the blade to give it an oil coating. This worked well for the next couple of days. The next trip I went on, I forced a patina on it. This worked well, making the knife much more rust resistant but still not nearly as good as the coating. I've also taken to carrying an oil rag in a ziplock in my bag to give the knife a wipe down from time to time. Every once in a while I get tired of the patina look and after sharpening, I'll buff up the blade to get it shiney again. Feels like I have a nice new knife and that is kind of fun.
However, I didn't buy this blade to be pretty. I didn't buy this knife to be a super sharp cutter. I bought it to be a bomb proof survival blade and I realized after the fact that I compromised its bomb proofness somewhat by removing the excellent coating it originally had.
