Cleaning out the chest today

mikeymoto

mikeymoto

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My office is closed for the day because of the snow.

Recently I was showing some knives to a friend and noticed some of the non-Busses had rust forming on them! :eek: Today I'll be going through my collection and cleaning everything up, wiping them down with mineral oil and cleaning any knives that need it with some flitz.

One of the knives, made in the UP in Michigan, has never been used and was sitting in a drawer in its leather sheath and it had some rust/tarnish on the exposed bolster! The steel is A2 but I don't know what the bolsters are made of. It polished right up, but still...

Do people use desiccant in their "safes"? Any recommendations?

So far no Busses are any worse for the "wear" sitting in a chest in my house.
 
Sorry to hear that.
Old rule-of-thumb, Do not store your knives in their sheaths. I learned the hard way too.
 
Before I get dog-piled--- do not store your knives in 'Leather' sheaths.
Sorry for the DP.
 
Note I mentioned the tarnished part was not in a sheath.

Most of my knives are stored in their cardboard sleeves. I don't want to talk about whether or not to store knives in sheaths, but instead whether or not people have chosen to take extra measures to keep moisture out.
 
I hate when that happens:grumpy:

You can try out a Golden Rod, depending on the size of your safe I'd say a 12" would do the trick but you'll still want to wipe the knives down that have natural handle materials with mineral oil every so often to keep them from cracking.


Here's a link to them if you have never seen them around http://www.goldenroddehumidifiers.com/.

Good luck
Helle
 
Sorry to hear Mike.Send them my way and I will
make sure they are in a safe dry place for you!!!
I will also make sure the sheaths are kept well too!!!
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
 
Mike---I store my blades in a upper level room in the house but check on them once a month. My blades have a light coat of oil on them. Good luck.
 
You can store them in sheaths if you give them a healthy coat of Tuff Glide or, even better, Marine Tuff Glide.

I'm guilty of storing Busses in leather sheaths, but I do coat them. Stuff that rusts even easier gets stored out of sheath.
 
I also learned the hard way-keep everything wiped down with mineral oil! I got surface rust on Infi, SR-101, various stainless and tool steels, even the titanium handles on a couple of my knives, due to the humidity in my house from running a swamp cooler (and living right next to a little creek). Sure made me feel like an idiot! I'm looking into a display case that I can keep a bunch of silica crystals in to remove the humidity this summer.
 
The mineral oil has worked great for me. Even when it drys out it forms a protective barrier. It's cheap and safe to consume too, if you ever use your knives for food prep.
 
Matteo Escobar said:
The mineral oil has worked great for me. Even when it drys out it forms a protective barrier. It's cheap and safe to consume too, if you ever use your knives for food prep.
Click to expand...

I just started using the mineral oil for more than handles, and I agree. I have a stripped Ratweiler that I've used mineral oil on before/after the past couple of outings. The oil does a nice job of fending off any oxidation.
 
i don't know about you guys, but i am dam proud of my collection.
and naturally i want people to see them, therefor i got them stored like this.
bigaa6.jpg


edit: this is not all of my knife, just one shelf ^^
 
Save your silica gel packets and keep them in your safe. Eventually they will not be able to hold water, but the absorbed water can be baked out of the gel in an oven, and the silica gel crystals can be reused. Being in Utah, I don't have to deal with as much humidity. You can read more about this other places online.
 
I have an article on knife storage HERE. It sounds like the environment around your safe may be humid. Safes can sometimes create humidity themselves, especially ones with fire counteracting features. If the environment around the safe is humid, and you can't move the safe, you could use some dessicant, but I wouldn't rely on it. Once a year, take out everything, check for odors, and re-apply a coat of Renaissance wax to all metal, natural, and synthetic materials. That is, of course, after an initial treatment, where you clean the knives, dry them really well, oil the joints, and coat with Ren wax.
 
I live in the Florida Keys. Did you say humidity? I keep my knives and guns in a safe with a GoldenRod dehumidifier and have no problems.
 
I have the same problem in the summer but in the winter when it gets really dry I have the problem that my wood knife handles shrink. In some cases it happens on wood that I thought was stabilized. My goal is to find a stable humidity to store my knives (i.e., not to wet, not too dry).
 
What kind of humity are y'all talking about??? Man it's 38% in my garage!!! My problem is to stop the nose bleed!
 
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