# Cleaning Knives



## LBurnett (Feb 21, 2012)

Hey guys,

I have an old navy knife, but the blade is way past shiny.. When I polish it, it still has black marks and dots all over it.

Does anyone have any ideas of how to clean it to a shine? I can upload some pictures if wanted.


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## Danny0663 (Mar 15, 2011)

I'm assuming the "black dots" are rust pitting. You can't exactly get rid of them unless you do some light/heavy grinding.
Just clean up the blade and give it a nice coat of wd-40, mineral oil, or what ever you have.









(This is a knife that i cleaned up after years of neglectance, notice the rust pitts







)


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## e~shot (Jun 3, 2010)

This is one of my friends knife who gave to me for repair. It has done completely with sandpapers. for more tutorial check with newconvert


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## Sofreto (May 10, 2012)

I use "00, or 000"steel wool...usually gets the job done


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## Sean (Nov 17, 2011)

I use never-dul polish and I find it does a good job cleaning my knives if they ever need it without scratching.


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## harpersgrace (Jan 28, 2010)

A rust eraser, or metal glo with a scotch brite pad, but if you want a mirror polish you're going to need buffing compound and a wheel. It can also be done with sand paper, steel wool, etc., and hand buffing but that will take a lot of elbow grease, good luck personally if there's no active rust I'ld clean it and leave as is. Carbon steel tends to discolor with use doesn't hurt a thing.


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## jskeen (Feb 7, 2011)

When you say navy knife I'm assuming you have some variation of either this









or 









The first is a pilot's survival knife, part of the survival gear kept in their crash vest. The second is a combat knife, made by camillus but to the pattern more commonly made by kabar. Usually issued to units involved in direct ground combat or support missions.Both of these type blades were originally parkerized, which is a dull green or black coating applied to cut down on rust and reflections from a polished blade (which can be a bad thing if one is trying to sneak up on somebody else and cut their throat, or some such) The coating wears, and some people remove it and polish the steel underneath, if they are not necessarily involved in wet work.

Another likely possibility is something like this 








which is a sailors knife, usually issued to bosuns's mates or other such rif raff, who are involved in working with lines, cables and such onboard ship. These are almost always stainless steel , so if you have one of these that is rusty, it was either seriously abused (stainless steel will rust, given sufficient opportunity) or quite old and made of tool steel.

In either case, if it is smooth and you can't feel the marks with a fingernail, I wouldn't worry about it. Those type of marks can be removed with abrasives, and then the surface polished back to a uniform shine, but it's a big job and usually not worth the trouble. It will also completely destroy any collector value in an old knife, as everybody wants a collector blade in as close to original condition as possible.

If you can feel the spot, then it is either active rust, which must be completely removed, or a clean pit where it had rusted in the past, but was cleaned. There are a ton of ways to remove rust while minimizing the collateral damage to the rest of the blade, but deciding which one to use would really depend on a close examination of the knife in question, (or at least a pic) Clean pits can't be removed short of grinding the entire blade down to below the level of the deepest hole, and is seldom practical at all. Just clean it good then wipe on a light coat of light oil, then remove as much of it as possible with a clean cloth, then apply a coat of wax, let it dry, then buff to remove the excess.

Also, never store a knife in or touching a leather sheath. Leather absorbs moisture from the air, and will rust a blade right through the oil, wax or whatever in a relatively short time. The best way to store a knife is wrapped in couple of layers of clean cotton cloth )like a section torn from a bedsheet (but not one of mom's good ones, DAMHIKT) and placed in an individual box where other knives won't bang into it, then kept in a dry room temp drawer or cabinet. DON'T put in a closet with a water heater (natural gas gives off water vapor as it burns) or in a bathroom or kitchen drawer if avoidable.

Hope that helps


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## LBurnett (Feb 21, 2012)

That has helped a lot James! Thank-you so much.

The knife I have is the sailor knife, but fully metal and has seen better days. I will upload some pictures of it later


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## LBurnett (Feb 21, 2012)

http://s1048.photobucket.com/albums/s378/L_Burnett/

Here is the knife, little dirty


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## ifix (Jun 11, 2012)

those go for under £40 in similar condition. it will depreciate in value if you do anything to it.


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## LBurnett (Feb 21, 2012)

Yeah I have spoke to jskeen about it now, I now know all I need to know about it


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