Waxing a knife?

I just ordered some neutral shoe polish to try on the stone scales. I currently use Rennaissance Wax so Bill you have me curious now.... :)
 
Bowling Alley Wax is what I use. It came highly recommended from some very accomplished makers. I like it better than Ren Wax, and it's cheaper.
 
Blankblank said:
I must have misunderstood.... how do I get the candle wax off my blade? Will the smell still remain?
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if it's paraffin based wax, mineral spirits will dissolve it and then you can wash your blade with soap and water and use a microfiber cloth after washing to get the last little bit off. Mineral oil may also cut it - it softens beeswax, but I haven't tried making a mix of mineral oil and paraffin.

if there's even the slightest amount of wax left on the blade and you look a the knife under a hand held microscope, you'll see it. If you don't have a hand held microscope, then you're left to just keep using a clean section of microfiber cloth until you've stopped seeing anything come off on the cloth and then several more times over to be sure.

If you get everything washed, there will be no smell or taste. You can get to the same place with vigorous washing and wiping if you don't like the mineral spirits idea. When you are cleaning wax (or wiping off oil) with something that doesn't dissolve it and there's a lot, you are basically transferring it to a cloth and distributing some over the surface of whatever you're cleaning. It becomes sort of an iterative process, for example, maybe you get 80% off it off on a clean cloth each time you go over it, but it takes a little while before there's so little left that it's negligible.

Just to show the microscope comment - here is a blade that had light oil for sharpening. This is how much oil is still left on the blade after wiping the blade with a clean section of cloth four different times:

oily blade

Almost all of the lines and all of the little dots are oil - far from being any amount that would dirty a cloth at this point, but still there. If there's even a little spot of oil on the side of the blade and the whole blade is wiped, you end up distributing it all over the knife. the scale of this picture is only 1.9 hundredths of an inch in height.

The other side of this comment is if you can't smell or feel the oil or wax on the blade, then there's probably not enough on it to matter.
 
D-weaver said:
if it's paraffin based wax, mineral spirits will dissolve it and then you can wash your blade with soap and water and use a microfiber cloth after washing to get the last little bit off. Mineral oil may also cut it - it softens beeswax, but I haven't tried making a mix of mineral oil and paraffin.

if there's even the slightest amount of wax left on the blade and you look a the knife under a hand held microscope, you'll see it. If you don't have a hand held microscope, then you're left to just keep using a clean section of microfiber cloth until you've stopped seeing anything come off on the cloth and then several more times over to be sure.

If you get everything washed, there will be no smell or taste. You can get to the same place with vigorous washing and wiping if you don't like the mineral spirits idea. When you are cleaning wax (or wiping off oil) with something that doesn't dissolve it and there's a lot, you are basically transferring it to a cloth and distributing some over the surface of whatever you're cleaning. It becomes sort of an iterative process, for example, maybe you get 80% off it off on a clean cloth each time you go over it, but it takes a little while before there's so little left that it's negligible.

Just to show the microscope comment - here is a blade that had light oil for sharpening. This is how much oil is still left on the blade after wiping the blade with a clean section of cloth four different times:

oily blade

Almost all of the lines and all of the little dots are oil - far from being any amount that would dirty a cloth at this point, but still there. If there's even a little spot of oil on the side of the blade and the whole blade is wiped, you end up distributing it all over the knife. the scale of this picture is only 1.9 hundredths of an inch in height.

The other side of this comment is if you can't smell or feel the oil or wax on the blade, then there's probably not enough on it to matter.
Click to expand...
It was just a joke. I appreciate the response though.
 
Nuther vote for Mother's Carnuba Car wax! I use to use Ren Wax decades ago. But quit it. For my deal a carnauba car wax is way better.
 
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