Two part question.
1. Is this what I think it is?
2. What should I do about it?
Two part question.
1. Is this what I think it is?
2. What should I do about it?
hit it with some barkeeper's friend.
Not if it's a hole.
Hitting it with BKF will let him know what he's dealing with, regardless.Originally Posted by Salty dog
How did you store this knife? Was it in a blade guard of some kind? Those blade guards can trap moisture, whether left over from cleaning the blade yourself or from condensing and trapping moisture in the air.
If it is indeed rust there, you want to get it off first. Use barkeepers friend or some other non-abrasive rust/tarnish remover - I'm assuming barkeeper's friend is non-abrasive cuz I don't use that particular product myself. For the pits themselves, you'll have to scrub the stuff out somehow. I tried elbow grease before and it was very time-consuming... but then again I had a more extensive problem. Using a brass or nylon brush on a Dremel (variable speed one that can go down to 15k-17k rpm) will really make things much easier. Brass will leave ... well, brass deposit though it works faster. Both brushes are softer than steel so they will scrub away the rust without removing steel.
The knife won't look pristine again, but at least this will stop further damage from occurring.
Len
In my experience that's just a concentrated patina in those spots. It can happen easily on a high carbon knife being used all day for prep if it is left with food acids on it. My O1 santoku just went through this when my wife used it to prep food for a party. If you rinse and dry intermittently in all day prep you'll avoid it. Bar keepers friend didn't really remove the patina spots, just cleaned them up a bit to a nice dark gray. If it happened in the block, an acid was on the blade in those small spots. Moisture will cause red oxide, some acids cause a brownish oxide others a black. Just make sure it's not rust (red oxide) developing an you'll be fine.
In my opinion anyway.
1... corrosion
2...leave it alone or steel wool and flitz metal polish will clean up
3...Buy a Stainless Steel Blade
BKF is only abrasive if used dry or damp. if used with plenty of water, it's merely chemical.
When I first started using carbon knives, I started with proteins which resulted in patina that had deep blue dots and I freaked out thinking that it was starting to rust. After cleaining it up with BKF, I started over and it did it again which I realized was patina because there was no red in the coloring. Yours looks like you could have some rust in it, which I would say BKF, Flitz or new one I heard this week was Breakfree CFP, which I haven't tried but looks promising.
Thanks for the tips guys. I cleaned up the blade with some BKF and it looks like I caught the problem before it got too bad. Most of those little dots were rust. Looking at them through my loupe after a good scrubbing they do not appear to be very deep and cannot be felt with a fingernail. There is no red left on the blade.
I do keep the knife in an Eamon sheath and based on the fact that this only happened on one side of the blade I can only assume it was not bone dry when I put it away last. Camellia oil is in the mail. Lesson learned the hard way for my first carbon.
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