Long term storage for carbon knives?

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The hekler

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Okay as some of you may or may not know I am leaving for navy bootcamp in a week, assuming everything goes well after two months I will then have 5 months of schooling to be followed by deployment to round out 4 years. While there will be small opportunities to come home and hopefully dust the knives off I cannot count on it so I am wondering how can I safely store my 6 knives: three shiges, ho wood handles, an o-1 gyuto from Del stablized wood handle, Tadafusa blue 2 Deba with ho wood handle, and a stainless parer with giraffe bone from Butch. So what are your recommendations for how to treat them before packing them away. They will be in a locked toolbox kept at my parents house (can never be too safe). I was thinking maybe some 3-1 gun oil? But have no idea, I'm guessing not in any sayas? But boxes obviously a plus? Thanks for the help.
 
Okay as some of you may or may not know I am leaving for navy bootcamp in a week, assuming everything goes well after two months I will then have 5 months of schooling to be followed by deployment to round out 4 years. While there will be small opportunities to come home and hopefully dust the knives off I cannot count on it so I am wondering how can I safely store my 6 knives: three shiges, ho wood handles, an o-1 gyuto from Del stablized wood handle, Tadafusa blue 2 Deba with ho wood handle, and a stainless parer with giraffe bone from Butch. So what are your recommendations for how to treat them before packing them away. They will be in a locked toolbox kept at my parents house (can never be too safe). I was thinking maybe some 3-1 gun oil? But have no idea, I'm guessing not in any sayas? But boxes obviously a plus? Thanks for the help.

My first thoughts were either camellia oil or the treated paper used by many knife makers, but one week, with a holiday in it leaves no time to order and get anything like that.

So, I'd suggest a light coating of mineral oil before wrapping the blades in wax or parchment paper. The handles should be OK without anything special, although you can use mineral oil on the ho wood handles if you want.
 
Sent them to me to look after while you are gone? Ehh, worth a shot.


Wash them in really hot water, dry them thoroughly, then apply camellia oil. Don't want to trap any moisture between the oil and the knife. After that I would just leave them in boxes, you can store the sayas separately. I would use the treated paper if I had some, otherwise I would just skip it. What is the humidity like where you live? Even if there are less humid rooms in your parent's house, I would try to leave the toolbox in one of them.
 
Okay as some of you may or may not know I am leaving for navy bootcamp in a week, assuming everything goes well after two months I will then have 5 months of schooling to be followed by deployment to round out 4 years.

My sympathies. You are going to have to endure a lot of indignities over the next several months.

Bootcamp is designed to break you down as an individual and make you part of the "team." Tech School will be more of the same.

I did four years in the Air Force. Bootcamp at Lackland in TX, then a year of Tech School purgatory at Keesler in MS, then three years at Ramstein in Germany.

Loved Germany.

Absolutely hated every second I spent in the military.

The main thing I learned from military service is that life is too short to work for idiots. YMMV

Best of luck.

James
 
You shoulda done boot in the army in '69! Big fun that was not!
 
Thanks for the help guys, I have a couple sheets of the rust preventing paper so I'll give that a go with the knives they came with and use cammelia oil for the others. I'm sure your right jheis, but I find that to be true no matter where you work, if your not working for yourself your gonna end up having an idiot for a boss, just part of working.
 
Traditional long term storage of military firearms was(may still be) in cosmoline to protect the carbon steel from corrosion. Cosmoline is a sticky waxy grease. Another possible thought is vacuum sealing. The key is to keep out moisture and oxygen. -Doug
 
Great thread. Most people make the mistake of gooping on some heavy oil or wax without realizing that they are trapping moisture under the oil or wax. Oil floats on water, right? So, what I like to do is actually use WD-40 on a clean paper towel to clean the blade. The "WD" is for water displacement - and it works. Get another clean, dry paper towel and rub the WD-40 off as much as you can. Then apply camilla oil or even flooring wax. Wrap up in some wax-paper or coated butcher paper. Fold the ends over and tape up. Should be good to go.

-M
 
The "WD" is for water displacement - and it works.

Not sure about the WD-40. When I worked in elevator repair we were given a directive to never use WD-40 on relay contacts.
It worked to displace moisture, but left some sort of microscope evil resude that literally "ate" the contacts.

I use a dedicated water displacement product before placing in VCI bags or/and using a VCI emitter.

Boeshield T-9
 
WD40 is not good for plastics, or rubber which is why you don't want it anywhere near electronics. I've heard mixed things about its reactivity with copper, some say that it breaks down over time and thata what easTa the copper.
However, I've NEVER heard a problem with it damaging carbon steel. The process that MR explained sounds good.

The only thing that i would add is that you want to make sure that you don't get any of that crap on your handles. Wipe them with mineral oil then give em a thick coat of cutting board wax, then wrap with plastic wrap and secure with tape. THEN go about coating and wrapping the blades.
 
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