Newbie needs some advice in knife care please

[BigSlick]

Hello everybody,

Very new to this forum (this is my first post) and I am also very new to feeding my addiction of quality knives. Although I have been collecting cheap knives since I was around 9, now at 23 I have recently become very addicted into buying quality knives for edc. In the past three months I have started my collection with the purchase of these knives as follows:

Benchmade 32 Morpho
Spyderco Spyderfly Smallfly
Spyderco Tenacious
Benchmade mini Barrage
Benchmade 707 Sequel
Spyderco Sage carbon fiber

Getting back the topic: If anyone could give me some advice on how to properly care for and maintain these knives I would very much greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

 

[Ronindan]

A good sharpening system, torx screwdriver and some mineral oil (or other light lubricant) is all you need to take care of you knives.

 

[neuron]

A good sharpening system, torx screwdriver and some mineral oil (or other light lubricant) is all you need to take care of you knives.

+1 :thumbup:

To fill in some details/give you some options on each:

1. Sharpening system: There are a lot of choices here -- probably best to do a search here on BF to see what best fits your needs/preferences/price range. Lower-priced options include the Spyderco Sharpmaker or getting a set of benchstones and learning to sharpen freehand. Higher-priced options include one of the Edge Pro models or a bench grinder/paper wheels setup. The Sharpmaker can be found at most online knife retailers, and you can get the Edge Pro directly from the manufacturer or from a handful of online retailers. (Those are the two sharpening systems I own; I'll leave it to others with experience with benchstones and paper wheels to suggest particular brands/retailers.)

One note on the Sharpmaker: you'll want to get some lower-grit aftermarket stones if you plan on doing any serious rebeveling with it. Congress Tools is one company that makes stones that happen to fit the Sharpmaker's triangular slots (see this thread).

2. Torx screwdriver: Just get a set of mini-torx screwdrivers since different knives (or different parts of the same knife, such as pivot and handle screws) use different size torx screws. I bought mine on Amazon, but you can find them at most local hardware/home improvement/big box stores.

3. Lubricant/rust inhibitor: Mineral oil, being non-toxic, is the way to go if your knives are going to be used in food prep. You can find it at CVS/Walgreens/other pharmacies, where it's sold as a laxative/"personal lubricant". For knives that aren't going to be used for food prep, I'm a big fan of Tuf-Glide. It's a dry lubricant/rust protectant; you apply it as a liquid, but once it dries, it doesn't attract pocket lint, dirt, and so forth like "wet" lubricants do. You can find it at most online knife retailers.