Should I or should I not do something to these knives?

[Motey]

I recently bought three Messermeister wraps full of knives and various kitchen tools from an out of work chef. These two knives are respectively a 14" F. Dick and a 12" Henckels supposedly from the old days. Obviously carbon steel, and the "patina" they have growing all over them is, as you can see, robust.

I would like to clean these knives up, since some of the staining is from being improperly stored while I guess wet, and maybe from cutting acidic stuff too. Ultimately, having a dark, stained butcher's knife isn't an issue, but I would rather it be more...I don't know...aesthetically pleasing? Should I clean these blades? And how should I go about it?

 

[richard j]

you can get some sandpaper and sand off the rust and stains. 400 grit should do the job. a belt sander would make short work of cleaning them up and possibly get rid of some of the pits if they are not too deep.

 

[swonut]

If it were me, I'd hit them with some metal polish first and "brighten" the metal a bit. The pits and patina are kind of cool and I would think sand paper would be too much, and something you could always do later. I'd also refresh the stain on the handles and maybe give them some type of rubbed oil finish. There I'd probably use some sand paper or a scotchbrite pad to get started. Shiny chefs knives are easy to come by, those have character-- That's what I'd look to preserve.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

If you're just concerned about the stains (black 'patina' and/or red rust), I'd first use some metal polish made for steel & other hard metals (like Flitz/Simichrome). If just removing surface rust, WD-40 and some very fine steel wool would work. Don't use the sandpaper unless you're wanting to get rid of the pits in the steel. Those won't harm the blade, IF they're cleaned of the red rust which might be in/on them.

 

[Motey]

Groovy, thanks for the tips. I'm not interested in having them in a like new sort of polish really. I guess I'm just a little bothered by the straight line of stain across the Henckels logo. I think he said his wife decided to cut a tomato with it one day and didn't dry it off right before putting it back in this plastic edge guard thingy they were in when I bought them. I like that they don't have a shiny mirror finish like some of my other knives, so I suppose I should suppress my urge to be constantly tinkering with everything.

 

[kvaughn]

0000 steel wool and then oil and use them--KV