carbon steel knives in the woods..

G

GoodForTheSoul

Joined
Nov 17, 2012
Messages
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Hey everyone, how do you carry oil or what not for your blades? when I go out I don't like carrying a big bottle of mineral oil in a bag if I go camping of what not..
 
Dont worry about it. Just wipe it off and dry it on your pants or something. It'll get a nice patina and be a bit more rust resistant. Ive carried carbon blades fishing/hunting and dinking around in the woods for years without an issue.
 
You dont really have to carry oil around with you.
All I do is wipe my blade off when Im done using it, try to keep
It dry, and oil it when I get home. Never had any problems.
 
Don't worry about it, if you see some rust then you can clean it up later when you are home. The best rust prevention is good honest use.
 
Where I live as long as you put it away dry it won't rust, I am sure it will work in the wild too. If you are nervous about it then oil it, it's your knife.
 
You can always oil the blade with the oil from the side of your nose or grease it up with fat from the game you kill.
 
If that really worries you, educate yourself on these 2 words: Fluid Film. Seriously, google it & educate yourself. GREAT STUFF.
 
I don't bother oiling my knives when I'm out and about. Once I get home I'll wipe them down and whatnot, but that's about it.

Have a look at this: it's from the 2013 Esee catalog. I thought this was friggin' awesome - here's what happens when you use a carbon steel knife in the jungle for three years straight, apparently: It might not be pretty, but it looks like it's still going strong.

2-31170da174.jpg


...so, yeah, I don't think a weekend camping trip without oil will hurt your knife.
 
You can buy a bag of those Coglhans container things, I carry a mini little squirt bottle with a bit of oil. Usually Ill only oil my knife on a canoe trip, or if I just cut onions and peppers.
 
I put a bit more effort into oiling in the cold months. When I get in from a below zero romp, I take my hatchet, knife or whatever out and get to room temp. They will often show condensation or have melted ice/snow on it somewhere. I wipe off and oil when warm. I let the sheaths dry also before putting back. If I'm tired I'll do a quickie, hold axe head down in toilet bowl and blast it with wd-40. Wipe head off and flush thunder pot.
 
I just rub the blade with my fingers, or like was previously mentioned, rub your nose or forehead and then rub it into your blade IF you're having rust issues.
I don't really have rust issues even though I live on the coast, especially after I get a decent patina on the blade.
My overall lack of rust issues make it quite difficult for me to warm up to stainless steels for work blades.
None of my woodworking tools have stainless blades. Probably a pretty good reason for that.
 
I don't know about using face oil.......some folks touch a stainless knife and it leaves a rust spot. Guess it depends on the persons chemistry?

Agree on using it and wiping dry. Seems to work even here in the high humidity swamps where I am. Rust still happens but easily cleaned off if not neglected for too long, in my experience. Ymmv.
 
I keep an oily rag in a ziplock bag in my hiking pack. It doesn't take much space at all, and you can wipe your blade down whenever you please.
 
Down here on the trail we cut a lot of vines and the sap oxidizes the blade quickly. We used large leaves to clean it before re-sheathing.
The blade builds up a nice patina over time just like the ESEE knife above.
 
Silicone impregnated cloth carried in the gun cleaning section of box stores sporting goods. It works depending on the situation for a couple of months before it dries up. While it's on the knife it coats the steel with silicone creating a barrier to oxygen. I've never had rust/oxidization while using it. I used to keep one at my table when I worked gunshows to wipe the sweaty fingerprints off and recoat.

Naturally if I got into something really badly corrosive I would wash it off before wiping the knife down to help protect that knifes finish but also to keep any of whatever from being transferred inadvertently to other knives.

When working gun shows I often would re box knives up and not check them for days to weeks so I didn't want any fingerprints in my nice knifes finish. Fingerprints that are sweaty can ruin the finish on a knife or gun ( especially nice hot blue glossy pretty ones :( ) literally overnight.

For long term storage its a cleaning and a coating or two of Renn wax and no storing in the sheath. Cardboard sleeves, or waxed & treated paper like GEC sends their knives in, and Spyderco wrapped their Super blue knives in. That's first choice, clean, dry, white tissue type paper with several wraps come next.

Corrosion is never a problem for me and I find taking care of knives and firearms relaxing and stress relieving. The only time I ever had a problem was a custom from a maker that used rex 20/M62 in a blade and media blasted it. Someone left a fingerprint on it. The best I could do was get the process stopped, but that was some rusty stuff. White steel from Hitachi can be also but it's very easy to take care of.

Non stainless steels like A2, 3V, Cruwear, CPM M4, M2, etc. I find about as easy as 154cm to keep corrosion free. Perhaps it's just they both fit into the same schedule of cleaning while O-1, W2, White, Blue, etc steels are in another, more intensive ( but not bad, or difficult) category with more checks, more thourough maintenance. Etc.

Joe
 
GoodForTheSoul said:
Hey everyone, how do you carry oil or what not for your blades? when I go out I don't like carrying a big bottle of mineral oil in a bag if I go camping of what not..
Click to expand...

I called this guy to get some answers ....

GumpyDude.jpg


He just shook his head and went back to workin'. ;)

Seriously, though. As other folks have mentioned, just wipe your blade from time to time and you'll be fine. From the time man started forging steel blades until sometime in the 20th century, ALL knives were carbon steel knives.
 
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