How Clean a Stick Tang?

W

Waco Kid

Joined
Apr 7, 2006
Messages
91
Howdy all,

I have a nice carbon steel Bowie that I consistently clean and oil.

But, Boy! does this knife rust!

Just the other day after washing the blade with warm water and soap, it became speckled with rust in the time it took to turn off the faucet and pick up the roll of paper towels... I quickly cleaned it off with flitz and re-oiled it.


This made me start thinking about the state of the (stick) tang. I always clean the blade. I use either jojoba oil, camelia, linseed or something similar on the wood handle. But there seems to be no way to clean the tang. It also seems like this would be the most dangerous place to allow rust to form -- being a thinner/narrower peice of steel and (where the cross guard is) at the center of stess...


Any thoughts? opinions?

Thanks all,

Kid
 
Don't use soap and water to clean carbon steel, rust under the tang should not be an issue if properly constructed. Instead use mineral spirits/wd40/ the oil you use to protect it with.
 
This is something that's bothered me also. Hopefully, the stick tang is epoxied well.
 
I have some carbon steel moras that you can see daylight through the handle. They often get quite wet, so I'm sure there is some rusting going on in the handle. On the advice of others, I took a new one, stood it on it's tail, ran a bunch of wd40 through the handle, and let it dry. Then I sealed it up with silicone caulk. I'm going to use it identically to the others, then cut the handles off of both and compare. Should be interesting, but it will take a couple of years before I'm going to find out...
 
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