Camellia Oil FAIL

It seems that bad luck strikes in threes, especially when it comes to pricey knives. DamageInc had issues with the Hinoura and Kato… I just unpacked some of my mirror polished honyaki blades today from storage while they await their new handles and found this:




The blades were oiled and put in ferobrite paper, not sure what the hell went wrong… talk about first world problems.

I imagine it'll clean up with flitz or chromium oxide polishing compound (?), it looks worse in the pictures to be honest, in person it's more like a tinted mirror.

I actually just mailed a CS gyuto to get some work done that had the same treatment, I better send an email to the vendor as a heads up to let them know they may have an unpleasant surprise when they unpackage the knife

That looks like it would polish up very quickly with Flitz or Barkeeper's friend. Depending on how long I had a carbon knife in storage, I'd be happy with a mild oxidation result like that as long as there was no rust or pitting.

Better than heavy rust.

AFAIK, you should be able to buff it off easily with chromium oxide compound on a strop, especially that you don't have a handle staying in your way. Still....

Do you think this was a result of an interaction between camelia oil and the anti rust paper?

I wish I had your problems...

Should buff out pretty easily. Still, what a sad sight to see when unpacking honyakis.

Try putting a bit of toothpaste on a cloth and rub a part of the knife with it. I do it all the time to remove stains.

DamageInc, the toothpaste doesn't create patina on a carbon knife?

I believe you should use either the camelia oil or the paper but not both. That said, I'm not really sure what happened...how long were they in storage?

Marcelo Amaral said:

DamageInc, the toothpaste doesn't create patina on a carbon knife?

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Nope. I use it to remove patina and light rust and it leaves polished steel surface. It might be dependent on toothpaste brand. I use Zendium.

gic said:

Do you think this was a result of an interaction between camelia oil and the anti rust paper?

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I'm not really sure, I know when I got them (likewise with the Misono Swedish Steel knives) there was a faint coating of something on them inside of the paper, perhaps it was mineral oil instead.

chinacats said:

I believe you should use either the camelia oil or the paper but not both. That said, I'm not really sure what happened...how long were they in storage?

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It's kind of embarrassing but I've had them in storage (just a large rubbermaid tote box at home in a spare room, not in a shed/garage or anything like that) since I got them after taking the handles off to get the tang specs for rehandles. I cleaned them up with acetone to remove anything and put them back (in the paper only) quite some time ago, and within the past couple of weeks put the oil on since it was getting more humid (around 40-45% RH) with the summer and all. They looked fine at the time, and just yesterday I wanted to have another look at the K-tip gyuto as I'm on the fence about getting something smaller. I may have put on more than was needed (I recall there being an inside joke somewhere on Dave's sub-forum how camellia oil works for everyone except one particular member/vendor), but it certainly wasn't blotchy like in the pictures. Not sure if I trapped some humidity or something.

I know once the knives get rehandled and used they'll patina anyways, but this was a bit of a surprise.

It's unfortunate that this happened and I've got no idea why you had this problem. It must be doubly annoying that this happened after having taken appropriate precautions.

Did the oil bead up at all?

With Nihonto (where oxidation on the blade can easily cost thousands of dollars to put right properly), we usually wipe the blade and then clean with Uchiko powder, apply a very light coat of Clove oil (basically scented mineral oil) and store in a saya. Doing this allows safe storage of extremely reactive blades for extended periods without any oxidation.

I know it doesn't help in this situation, but it might be a useful technique in future if you do have to store a blade indefinitely.

I didn't notice any beading when I applied it, there may have been some light streaks from the cloth being too saturated though (I didn't get the spray/pump bottle), but not in the blotchy pattern. I actually have three bottles of the stuff, two from Koki (one of which I currently have open) and one from Dave; they all look identical in terms of consistency, color, etc. At least this is only cosmetic and correctable. I'll be curious to see what the Misono dragon looks like when it arrives in the USA

Is this the anti-rust paper you used? Came with the knives from JP?

How do the papers work?

Are they impregnated with particles of a sacrificial metal to encourage a galvanic reaction, a catalyst to neutralize corrosive agents or something else entirely?

Yes I'm quite certain that's it (can confirm later), although I also recall having one with red writing and/or Japanese

MAS4T0 said:

How do the papers work?

Are they impregnated with metal particles to encourage a galvanic reaction, a catalyst to neutralize corrosive agents or something else entirely?

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Cathodic protection / sacrificial anode seems plausible

I just read the wiring on Dave's photo which states that it's treated with a "Volatile Corrosion Inhibitor".

That would mean that it works by leaching out inhibitors, so it would only be effective when used in sealed container as the inhibitors would otherwise diffuse away.

Dave Martell said:

Is this the anti-rust paper you used? Came with the knives from JP?

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tjangula said:

Yes I'm quite certain that's it (can confirm later), although I also recall having one with red writing and/or Japanese

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That's it alright, I also have some extra that is unused with the red & Japanese writing. Perhaps when I get around to making them pretty again I'll use the fresh paper.

Nail polish remover. Looks like they dipped it in lacquer to give it a coating but didn't do it properly.

wow never thought about the lacquer...

Lacquer was my first thought as well.

uh I mean me too

spoiledbroth said:

uh I mean me too

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lus1:


Lacquer never crossed my mind either.

Yeah, it is quite common to do here. They say it is to give it a protective coating to help prevent rust from forming, but it ends up making the blade look nasty if it is done lazily. But like I said some nail polish remover or thinner should take that right off.

Interesting, I did clean up with pure acetone (primary constituent of nail polish remover) to remove the traces of whatever was on them after removing the handles. I know by the time I was done there was some light oil initially coating the blades (not oily, but would leave fingerprints when handling), dust/grit, and a bit of a residue from the blue painters tape I had on. They cleaned up nicely and were fine with just the acetone and ferobrite paper for a few months at least prior to applying the oil a couple weeks ago. I'm going try and make some time to polish up the K-tip gyuto and see how that goes.

osakajoe said:

Yeah, it is quite common to do here. They say it is to give it a protective coating to help prevent rust from forming, but it ends up making the blade look nasty if it is done lazily. But like I said some nail polish remover or thinner should take that right off.

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I was typing while your comment was posted, perhaps I didn't do a good job initially with the acetone prior to all of this happening. The blades didn't really seem to have the clear coat on them; I had a cheap carbon clad KU gyuto before that you could actually see the lacquer pool up while cleaning when the acetone evaporated, not so with these ones, but they were mirror polished so perhaps I missed something in the reflection :scratchhead:

Tanner this really should be in My favorite color is blue thread.

Lol blue is also kinda how I felt when I unpacked them

Update:

I took some acetone and everything wiped right off. So far I've only done the Kiritsuke gyuto and you can see the difference from the earlier picture below:


I imagine the others will clean up just as easily. I suppose unlike my other thread (Blade Cleaning with Acetone FAIL) where I dissolved the Miyabi logos, this could be called Blade Cleaning with Acetone FTW! Thanks for the tip osakajoe, appreciate it!

Glad to hear it worked at that wasn't something more serious.