Rust recommendations?

[Pinkeye]

I've got a little surface rust. I let my kukri go too long without an oiling. Could someone point me to some resources? Any personal recommendations?

 

[mtngunr]

Cleaning or preservation?....even a brass brush will mar a mirror finish, especially as it picks up rust....soak blade in kerosene or diesel to passivate and loosen rust....brush out of pits and resoak if red shows....you can use steel wool or even 1000-2000 grit sandpaper if truly bad, doing a crosshatch with both....finish with tripoli cutting compound and then red rouge....a power wheel helps but only if you can not let wheel snatch blade and throw through your head....preservation is easy....keep clean and keep coated with wax of some sort which does not evaporate, gum up, and turn acidic, and do not ignore....and especially never ignore while in moisture magnet absorbing sheath....even plastics sweat moisture....ask shotgunners who left plastic shells in chambers....

 

[davidf99]

I've had good luck with Flitz polish on light surface rust and tarnish. I've used it on highly polished blades without harming the polished area around the rust.

 

[mtngunr]

I am all for the Flitz on a rusty blade but truth in advertising has me pointing out if i used the stuff on any of my well studied collectible blades, anybody that knew them would point out they had been polished and knock value off them right from the gitgo.....to most folk it looks the same, but to folk who collect, brasso, brillo, choreboy, flitz, steel wool, scotchbrite etc are spotted a mile away and you can positively hear the CLANK as the value falls....just an fyi inserted here.....

 

[Pinkeye]

Cleaning or preservation?....even a brass brush will mar a mirror finish, especially as it picks up rust....soak blade in kerosene or diesel to passivate and loosen rust....brush out of pits and resoak if red shows....you can use steel wool or even 1000-2000 grit sandpaper if truly bad, doing a crosshatch with both....finish with tripoli cutting compound and then red rouge....a power wheel helps but only if you can not let wheel snatch blade and throw through your head....preservation is easy....keep clean and keep coated with wax of some sort which does not evaporate, gum up, and turn acidic, and do not ignore....and especially never ignore while in moisture magnet absorbing sheath....even plastics sweat moisture....ask shotgunners who left plastic shells in chambers....

Cleaning. The rust isn't too bad ..yet. But its a little worse every week. I have to act. There are no pits, but there is tarnish and 'rust scabs' i suppose it the best way to put it.

..and i'll definitely try wax. ty.

 

[mtngunr]

There is pitting....clean it off...oil it....it etches and pits worse every day....any solvent....steel wool....whatever scouring pad or bore brush....polishing can always be fixed a lot easier than pits which require paring away everything else until level with bottom of pits....

 

[Pinkeye]

current status:

after some googling, i just used a brillo pad and household olive oil for the interim. Seems a quick enough fix. I wouldn't mind some long term recommendations though. This kukri is a user ...but only in the summers. Otherwise it sits.

edit: the brillo pad left minor scratches, but it got most of the rust off and all of the tarnish off. There are 2 or 3 small pits; the scratches are where i went to town on the pits. Otherwise a light brillowing wasn't at all harmful to the polish.

 

[mtngunr]

Take it outside in bright sunlight and turn different directions and you will see a lot more.....on a user it is no big deal but aesthetics....on a collectible, you would have just turned a $900 knife into a $500 knife...collectors can generally tell even if sheathed once or twice, much less, scoured...i try to avoid extra scratches as rougher finish holds contaminates and harder to clean down in scratches and more rust next time..
.a higher polish always easier to maintain....as for long term storage, a non abrasive (non "cleaning") auto wax and a cool dry place and out of sheath.

Olive oil goes rancid fairly quick....baby or mineral oil are good "food safe" oils even if not listed as such since most additives would be perfume and would take a good slug of it to effect GI tract in any case....

 

[Shavru]

Since we are talking users not a collector "un-violated" blade I suggest using some sandpaper in higher and higher grits to remove the heavier scratches then using a flitz like substance (my preference is Simichrome but they are all very similar) to get back a very minimal scratched but reasonable for user type surface. As mtngunr quite rightly points out the more scratches you leave the easier for rust to get a new foothold later.

I keep my blades fairly well coated in mineral oil as it unlike the olive oil won't go rancid with the resulting stench when you pull your blade out 6 months later. Now if you want to "prep" your blade prior to storing it for the majority of the year, I would clean it well, then use paraffin type wax coating. Renaissance wax is a name brand used by collectors, and is well thought of in the community. However, I don't think it is any better than a good layer of regular paraffin, which is FAR cheaper.

 

[Bawanna]

Where you been Shavru, you been absent a spell. Hope your not feeling poorly again?

 

[Shavru]

Heya Hun, Been here off and on, just kind of quiet, which is unusual for me. Just trying to get used to my new limitations. Getting old sucks, but it beats the alternative

 

[Pinkeye]

ty. on my way to walmart to pick up mineral oil an paraffin now.

 

[christcl]

Fireclean help abit if you have that laying around

 

[blue lander]

I just cleaned some nasty rust off my KLVUK with some Barkeepers Friend and it worked pretty dang good. It removed the rust, the patina and some of the forge scale too. The stuff is sort of like comet. I'm not sure what's in it, the label says it has oxalic acid in it and it smells like sulphur when you put it on steel.

After cleaning I doused the blade in windex to neutralize the acid . I can't say I recommend the stuff because I don't know what's in the stuff or what the long term effects will be, but I can say that it appears to work pretty good. I wouldn't put it on something collectible but on a KLVUK I'm not too worried

 

[Howard Wallace]

It appears half the forum is trying to put patinas on their blades, and the other half is trying to take them off.

The perspectives of kendoka, soldiers, and collectors have been given.

You, however, have a user. You needn't worry about a meticulous sensei, sergeant, or prospective buyer. Might I suggest benign neglect for your using blade, and an occasional rubdown with a scotch-brite pad?

I just reloaded the pictures of my abrasive rust removal in the old underwater torture testing thread.

The knife has been in use for 6 years since then and is still going strong. It's only ever cleaned up with water and an abrasive scotch brite pad. Some people expressed admiration of the beauty of its patina here.

I just hauled this old knife out of the back of my SUV to open coconuts at a friend's house, and didn't worry a bit about unknown toxic chemicals getting into the food.