I think it was the jelly-rust

A

Akwacko

Joined
Jul 1, 2001
Messages
163
I recently went on a caribou hunt and brought my new Dozier Yukon Pro Skinner. It was a joy to use while cutting up the two animals we harvestd. I cleaned the knife off at the end of the job and we happily flew back to Anchorage in my friends plane.

Well, on the way back we stopped to get gas in a small village and I used the Dozier to cut a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in half while I was waiting on the dock. I guess I didn't wipe it off enough because the next day the blade was spotted in six different place with rust. I rubbed most of it off, but I can see tiny and I mean tiny spots remaining. :( How can I remove these specks? I'm sure 99.999% of the people looking at the knife would never notice, but it bugs me none the less.

Thanks for any tips.

Bruce
 
What a coincidence. I'm sitting here removing rust freckles from a BM814T that have appeared over just the last week or so.

My technique which has worked perfectly, is Flitz polish.

Flitz is a chemical polish, not an abrasive polish. That means it's not the best thing for large-scale rust. But, for rust freckles that won't rub off, it's exactly what you want. Those rust freckles won't rub off because they're down inside the grain of the steel. If you looked at your blade under a very powerful microscope, what you'd see is

_/\_/--\_/\__/-\--/\__

Even though it looks and feels smooth to our fingers and eyes, the surface is full of little ridges and valleys. The rust freckles live down in the valleys. To get them with an abrasive polish, you'd have to remove the ridges, you'd have to remove metal. A chemical polish like Flitz goes down into the valleys and dissolves the rust chemically.

What you do have to do, though is rub the polish into the metal surface with a soft cloth to force the polish down into those valleys.

Buff it off and the spots will be gone.

If you're gonna put that knife away for a while, you might want to protect it with a quick coating of Renaissance wax. Sometimes people worry about waxing a blade that will be used for food. But, the amount of wax left on the surface of the blade is microscopic. Wax is, in fact, a common, FDA-approved food ingredient. And, if it really bothers you, you can remove it before you use the knife next time using an ammoniated window cleaner such as Windex.
 
A pencil eraser will quite likely solve the problem. Just erase away over the rust. Flitz is my backup after that.

Phil
 
Will Flitz work on a bead blasted knife (SOG X-Ray) and/or should I use an abrasive method (which is...)?
 
No.2 pencil, but not the eraser, the graphite ! Rub the spots lightly with a flattened pencil tip, then Flitz or MAAS, then Ren wax (or any good carnuba wax) Should fix you up, but the pencil tip is the trick (learned it from an old Civil War restoration guy) Let us know how it worked,
MtMike
 
Originally posted by Gollnick
Sometimes people worry about waxing a blade that will be used for food. But, the amount of wax left on the surface of the blade is microscopic. Wax is, in fact, a common, FDA-approved food ingredient. And, if it really bothers you, you can remove it before you use the knife next time using an ammoniated window cleaner such as Windex.
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Yes, because we'd all much rather be consuming ammonia than wax!
<shakes his head> I'd leave the wax personally., or flush with a lot of fresh water after that windex.

Just think, there's wax on every paper cup you use., some of it is going into your system, like it or not. It's not that big a deal. I don't see how it could possibly bother anyone, besides perhaps a lil waxy taste for the first few things that are cut with the blade.
 
Speaking of jelly one of the things you can use to remove light ruat is naval jelly - which is phosphoric acid in a gel.Some people even use coke-cola which has lots of phosphoric acid in it.
 
Akwacko - My best advice is to make sure that you dry off the blade before resheathing it. Having used my Doziers quite a bit, I've found the kydex sheaths to be the greatest rust culprits. If the knife is cleaned and resheathed wet, the water just sits there against the steel and kydex. There is nothing to absorb the moisture. The inside of a kydex sheath can take a very long time to dry out on its own. Even longer if the blade is left inside.
 
Yes, because we'd all much rather be consuming ammonia than wax! <shakes his head>
Click to expand...

:rolleyes: Ammonia evaporates very quickly.



I've found the kydex sheaths to be the greatest rust culprits.
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Exactly!

Mr. Buzzbait hit the nail squarely on the head. Never but never store a knife in a Kydex -- or similar material -- sheath. These are for immidiate carrying of the knife only.
 
Loud echo to all above, and even tho I'm a leatherman, I'd give the same advice to anyone carrying one of my custom sheaths. Very few knives are truly rust/stain free (titanium being an exception) and tho D2 is fairly rust resistant for a hi-carbon steel, it's by no means stainless. It's the old ounce of prevention thing --

Mike
 
My uncle has hunting knives for years with "rust freckles" and little pits. Doesn't hurt their function at all. I've gotten really bad rust on some old carbon steel knives that had been lost in the basement for a few years. Cleaned up good, and although the blade is marked and pitted, they work great. Rest easy with the pits, it's character marks, just like a person's face. If you can't handle surface imperfections over time, you'd best buy stainless steel. If Dozier doesn't have breather holes in his kydex sheath, I'd put a few in. They allow any residual water to evaporate. It works for me.
 
Allright I tried the pencil tip trick, but it didn't work. Bummer. The little specks are still there. I guess I'll try and get ahold of some Flitz and see it that does it.

Maybe I'll even try to get used to them. Which really wouldn't be to hard to do. I've gotten used to my crappy looking BM705 that has about 3/4 of the coating scratched off. I just think it adds character. :D

Maybe I'll even drill a couple of holes in the Kydex to let it breath a little better. Sometimes I don't do so well keeping things dry when I'm out in the Bush. I'm gonna do better in the future, I'm sure.

Thanks for the advice,
Bruce
 
I personally wouldn't drill more holes. Holes drilled after the sheath is put together leave lots of little kydex pieces, which usually end up scratching the heck out of the blade. The scratches look much worse than any small black spots.
 
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