Pitting

[KnewNifeGuy]

Hey folks, knife was a gift to someone who gave it back to me after total neglect. I’m inbetween wanting to repair it myself (never done it before) or send it off to a shop. Look what they did to my boy!

 

[jedy617]

Hard to tell how much of that is just surface rust. I would start with some 220 sandpaper and work at it for a couple minutes and see how it looks. Not much really to go wrong there

 

[Rangen]

There are chemicals that will turn red rust into something black that, unlike red rust, will not propagate. I believe that the active ingredient of Bar Keepers Friend, Oxalic acid, is one of them.

If the sandpaper still leaves pits showing red rust, I'd consider something like that. You don't want to leave it on there too long; it tends to discolor the metal.

Is that one of those knives with copper in the Damascus cladding, or is everything that looks orange just rust?

 

[jedy617]

+1 for barkeepers friend. Yeah that's rainbow damascus with copper

 

[deltaplex]

I bet most of that will come out if you hit it with vinegar/lemon juice, scrub with 0000 steel wool, hit it with baking soda, scrub it with the 0000, and then wash it like normal.

 

[Rangen]

My go-to "try to remove rust without affecting the underlying finish" minimal first attempt solution is 2000 grit sandpaper. Its effect has a very light footprint on just about anything but a pure mirror polish. It's generally my first resort, to see what I am up against. Often enough, it turns out that that was all I needed.

 

[bsfsu]

I'm another +1 for Barkeepers Friend, it's good if you don't want to mess the finish up. Just make sure to clean it all off.

 

[ag36]

As your knife seems to be acid etched at the factory I would recommend autosol or any other rough grit polishing compound.

I always used autosol to remove minor pitting on used Honyaki knives I've bought from Japan as trying to remove it by sandpaper or whetstone will be removing significant amount of metal and mess up the finish.