Biggest maintenance headache?

not2sharp

not2sharp

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Jun 29, 1999
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Which of your knives has been the hardest to maintain? I am often surprised when one of my allegedly “stainless” knives proves to be more susceptible to rust and corrosion than the 1095 or 01 blade stored next to it. There are blade coating that only complicate things by allowing corrosion to occur below the surface where you cannot reach it. Also, it should come as no surprise that elaborately detailed knives present more surface area and some of these odd corners are often hard to keep clean.

Which knives have been a problem for you? Let’s share.

n2s
 
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Admittedly, I'm not the greatest about blade maintenance, and I'm usually better about cleaning/oiling my carbon blades more than my stainless ones. But I'll still do the pants leg wipe sort of thing after use most of the time.

But here lately I've been having some rust issues with some of my 14c28n blades, both from Civivi and from Vosteed.

Haven't been using any of them for anything crazy, and since it's starting to cool off I haven't been sweating on them like crazy either. So idk, just noticed it about a week ago. They're not rusting away, just starting to notice some spotting popping up on 3 or 4 of them. 🤷‍♂️
 
Outside of some bead blasted stuff and one Dexter Sani-safe knife, I've never had trouble with stainless. That being said, I've never met an 0-1 knife that liked me, the worst is a mirror polished Wilkinson type D custom, there have been times I've been tempted to seal it in an oil jug :). 1095 fine, 5160 great, but O-1 and me just don't see eye to eye.
 
One of my ongoing battles has been with my Gerber BMF. This was an early grail knife for me. It spend most of the time in storage in an air conditioned space, but has a rusting problem. I have tried storing it away from the sheath, oil, wax, periodic cleaning, but it has been harder to maintain than most of my other knives.:eek:

n2s
 
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Living in a relatively dry climate may be a factor, but I've not had a problem with knives rusting. I use BreakFree CLP for most and lithium grease on the 1095 Blackjack Campanion I keep in the SUV, as it rarely gets much exercise.
 
Back when I tried several SOG D2 knives, they would get rust spots if I just took them outdoors during a Florida summer. Now I mostly carry LC200N and 420HC in wet weather (actually in most weather). I use a Gerber Strongarm with 420HC for a lot of wet stuff, such as stirring water and digging in wet sand and leaves, and wipe it off on my shorts. Not a speck of rust on them so far.
 
I'm in a dry area, so I don't have too much rust, but my carbon steel kitchen knives and straight razors oxidize like crazy because they're in contact with water more. I've come to accept that they'll have a permanent patina and just try to keep rust off now.

My biggest maintenance headaches, though, are the ones that are difficult to take apart and reassemble. One of those would be my Rike Lamella. The no-screws look is great, but it means getting the back cover off requires a lot of force and needs to be done with the blade open. I haven't cut myself doing it so far, but it is kind of a pain.

OTS automatics are even more annoying to take apart and reassemble. If they're designed right, the coil spring has to be under tension when reassembling, so you have to get everything lined up just right as it's trying to jump out of your hand and send parts flying everywhere. Plus, most of the nice ones (like Kershaw Launch and Protech) don't have washers and are made with very tight tolerances, so if you you overtighten the body screws just slightly, it won't function.

The Maxace Sandstorm is also tricky because it's an integral framelock with both bearings and bearing races. You can't just stack all these parts on the pivot and snap the other side of the handle on, so you have to shim each piece into place in the correct order.

Finally, my Twosun TS88 requires a lot of force to get the mortise and tenon parts unwedged. Fastener construction is much easier but I am very impressed by the way they made it with no screws. The price I pay to be entertained by gimmicks...
 
Not really about knives but; Swords with carbon steel hilts. Just why? I'll never understand it. So many makers use non-stainless steel for sword hilts. After every handling you have to clean & re-oil or wax them, otherwise they rust. Now imagine the pain with something like a swept hilt rapier or side sword. PITA, and completely unnecessary. There is such a thing as taking historical accuracy too far.
 
Lock rock & lock stick. The former only happened once that I can remember, and the latter works itself out eventually in my experience.
Also, I did notice a couple spots of corrosion on a 20cv blade that has a very rough, non reflective finish.
Kind of my fault for never maintaining it correctly, but I think they will come out the next time I disassemble & clean it. Hopefully

The only one that was any sort of headache was the knife I sent back for the lock rock issue (Socom Elite). They fixed it, and had it back to me in about a week and a half tho 👍
 
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I try to make a point of always washing and cleaning both stainless and carbon steel blades after use of something that might cause corrosion, because stainless includes a long scale of varying resistance and resistance isn't stain proof. If you're cutting something acidic like tomatoes, it doesn't matter that its stainless steel. Give it a rinse and dry after use. Even galvanized steel will eventually rust.
 
PM2.

I have six and they all have to be pretty tight to dial back side to side play.

I used to spend a lot of time trying to fix this, but never got them to what I want.
 
No real problems here, I sort of let my knives go and had to learn not to baby them. There's maintenance because it needs it, and then there's maintenance for maintenance sake and serves only to make user feel better
 
Hultafors GK, the SK-5 (SK-85) blade rusts a lot when I keep them outdoors. I have four scattered all over the yard and garden. I think my carbone Opinels are also a bit prone to rust, but I keep them indoors, so it's not a real issue.

Other than that, my single folder with ball bearings, the Böker Ti Urban Trapper, I only use to open envelopes, because I don't want to clean the ball bearings at all if possible. This thing is very finicky to take apart and reassemble.

I can't think of a single thing with any of the other knives. I sold all my problematic knives already, the Hultafors and Opinels are not worth the time and I like the Urban trapper enough to keep it around.
 
Edges of recurve are among the most challenging, followed by thick behind the edge (the thinner the edge, the easier to sharpen).
 
When my jeans are broken in, I'm happy. When my shoes are worn-out, I'm not. When I have a knife that shows wear and tear, hard use- I'm a happy caveman!

That being said, I ask myself: 'was my money well spent?'.
 
not2sharp said:
One of my ongoing battles has been with my Gerber BMF. This was an early grail knife for me. It spend most of the time in storage in an air conditioned space, but has a rusting problem. I have tried storing it away from the sheath, oil, wax, periodic cleaning, but it has been harder to maintain than most of my other knives.:eek:

n2s
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I have the same problem with an early LMF. Obviously it had been stored in the sheath. It now shows some staining that I do not know how to remove. Can you offer any advice?
 
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ml100 said:
I have the same problem with an early LMF. Obviously it had been stored in the sheath. It now shows some staining that I do not know how to remove. Can you offer any advice?
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I believe that the sheath is corrosive, as though the stiffener material were a form of celluloid. Once it begins to outgas the blade will develop micro pitting which will tend to readily rust. The first thing you want to try is to store the knife outside of the sheath.

n2s
 
not2sharp said:
Which of your knives has been the hardest to maintain? I am often surprised when one of my allegedly “stainless” knives proves to be more susceptible to rust and corrosion than the 1095 or 01 blade stored next to it. There are blade coating that only complicate things by allowing corrosion to occur below the surface where you cannot reach it. Also, it should come as no surprise that elaborately detailed knives present more surface area and some of these odd corners are often hard to keep clean.

Which knives have been a problem for you? Let’s share.

n2s
Click to expand...
I had a Pakistan-made survival knife with the hollow handle. 420J2 steel, I presume. That was a LOT of work to re-grind the edge to something useful, and even after I did, it didn't stay sharp. That's one thing to keep in mind when buying a knife: the factory edge grind. If it's not good, you're in for a LOT of work to correct it, even with coarse diamond stones. The only thing that would help would be some type of motorized sharpener.

Much as I love them, my Swiss army knives need (comparatively) at lot of maintenance. They need the pocket lint cleaned out of them maybe every couple weeks' worth of carry, and the steel is on the soft side, so it needs pretty frequent re-sharpening. It's only a couple swipes on the Sharpmaker, so it's not DIFFICULT maintenance, but it is frequent. The small 58 mm Victorinoxes especially need a lot of sharpening, with only 1.5" of sharp edge, each inch needs to do a LOT of work! On the other hand, those models have the backsprings inside, so they keep their snap even when full of pocket lint.

I bought a used Benchmade Arcane and it was from the older days, when they still sharpened by hand. It had a wide edge grind and I was dreading having to re-grind that super-hard S90v. Since it was also full of lint and missing a pocket clip, I sent it to Benchmade, who promptly corrected all of the issues. Whew, dodged a bullet on that one!
 
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