Best Maintenance for SAR6 satin finish

R

RWT

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Mar 15, 2011
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Just purchased the SAR 6 satin finish from BCS 3 weeks ago. First new Busse and first satin finish. I am breaking it in slowing by cutting every piece of meat or vegetables I am cooking. After each use it is washed in soap and water, wiped off and left on counter for slabs to dry. Today I noticed discoloration on the blade, rust in the lanyard hole and on the groves of the spine. I expect to be able to clean a number of animals over a long weeks hunting trip, wipe it off on my pants and not have to baby it after ever use. Basically, wash it off with water and place it back in the sheath until next time. What gives? What is the best maintenance for this finish?:confused:
 
Excellent choice brother! If you are using the knife for mostly food prep, you need to regularly clean the blade after each use and coat it with an edible lubricant; I recommend mineral oil. Its a small price to pay for the enormous performance gap between your typical stainless steel cutlery, and INFI. Mineral oil will keep your blade rust free and safe to use on food even if its drenched in oil! Veggies and especially fruits have naturally occurring acids in them that will decrease the amount of time required for decarbonation to occur, so be extra careful with food prep.

To remove the already rusted up spots, use a little bit of lemon juice/white vinegar on a rag or on a q-tip and a little elbow grease. If it is stubborn, the dark green side of a kitchen sponge works well too (be careful on the pretty satin finish!). Just be sure to get the vinegar or lemon juice COMPLETELY off before you store the knife! If you have any more issues with rust or decarb, post them here and we will help ya out :)
 
Why do we have to make everything so complicated? If you had enough money to buy it, hopefully your great great grandkids will have enough to replace it if necessary:D

In the interim wipe her down with some CLP
 
I noticed similar issues wit my RMD LE after several outings with no wipe-down or cleaning, then I put some barkeepers friend on it, cleaned it right up.

You shouldn't have to clean it every time you use it, a cursory wipe-down should suffice. Just be sure to clean it every now and again.
 
To clean out the Talon hole get you a .22 Cal STEEL Bore Brush. Works like a champ, then do as snwbrdr202. Food grade Mineral Oil works great. The best thing you can do is don't just leave it on the counter, completely dry the knife. I had issue's with some DCBB and fixed that malfunction by drying and oiling. Satin will be easier as a whole to maintain.
 
Tree sap is sorted by hot water and washing up liquid and a nylon sponge ( the green stuff ) ... then "dry" the knife properly as opposed to "air dry" ... if the knife is a chopper and not used for food I coat it in WD40 or gun oil ... if used for food then either some olive oil or vasaline gel which is none toxic ... any vegetable based oil works ... but the main thing is to dry the blade off ... some foods discolour the finish but the patina created is not an issue in respect of rust ... however I prefer to keep my food prep knife totally clean and avoid risks of dodgy stomachs ...

Infi is not hard to look after ... and cleaning with soap and water works fine in all cases so long as you dry the knife properly ... treat it like a firearm and dry them off the same and you will have no worries ...

I have been using my Basic 5 and S5LE ( both Infi ) for scuba work and canoeing with no issues ... I just dry the knives properly after use and that is after rinsing them and cleaning them in soapy water ...

If discolouration occurs after a lot of use I polish the satin finish with Flitz metal polish and then clean that off with pure alcohol ... infact pure alcohol works well as an antiseptic finish for any food prep too ...

The Flitz also sorts out any rust spots that anyone may have from "air drying" the blade ... or from letting the steel "sweat" if kept in a car during a hot day and then a cold night ... that can easily happen ...

If storing away in a draw use a thick coating of vasaline gel ... it acts like gun grease but is not toxic ...

I prefer not to store the blades in sheaths ... but some guys do and have no problems ...
 
Here's the order I use, in sequence of lightest-to-heaviest gunk, when soap/water doesn't do it:

Isopropyl alcohol (good cheap non-toxic solvent for a lot of tree saps/greases); then
WD-40; then
WD-40 with Magic Eraser; then
WD-40 with Scotch-Brite pad; then
Hoppe's No. 9 solvent; then
Hoppe's No. 9 solvent with steel wool (this will take rust off of INFI)

After using any of these, once the blade is clean I would wash with dish soap and hot water to eliminate any toxic chemicals, then lightly coat with mineral oil.

Breakfree CLP, as mentioned above, is good on non-food-prep blades, but I'd rather not eat it--just me. Same for WD-40.

You will notice a little discoloration/darkening on the blade from acids/salts in food. Don't worry about that. If you have to get it off to be satisfied, you can always go over the blade with 600 grit wet-dry sandpaper from any auto supply store to get back near factory finish, but that's way too much work IMO for a user.

From what you said in your original post, sounds like the knife is performing fine--you just need to watch the crevices around/in the fasteners and jimping and wipe them out/dry them just like you would do on any other good knife.
 
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