[Maintenance] Do I need oil on my blade?

[Hama]

Hello guys,

Lately, I got really interest with knives and I recently purchased my first EDC Knife. (Benchmade 940-1 (I Love this knife... wow......)

While I was watching youtubes I realized I have to maintain my blade with some oils.
( Ex)frog lube, 3 in 1, mineral oil and etc)
But question is, do I really need oil on my blade???

I did purchase 3 in 1 oil and coated on my blade atm. But if its not necessary, I would not like to coat any oil on my blade since I may use my knife on food.
( I Know there are many food graded oils out there, but this question rised when I met my friend who was pregnant. (If I had to use my knife to cut any food, I would want absolute no oil on food))

I always carry this knife everyday and I check my blade often. Do I still need oil on my blade to avoid corrosion?

Thank you.

 

[jackknife]

Your knife is stainless steel. Oiling the blade is not needed.

 

[JJ_Colt45]

Jackknife summed it up it's stainless ... just wash the blade good if you do any food prep and dry it good ... without submerging the whole knife. And all you may need is an occasional drop of lube on the pivot.

 

[Mo2]

Keep your blade dry and you will be fine. If humidity is a problem where you live then maybe some oil would help. Stainless just has a higher resistance to corrosion... Doesn't mean it won't rust. But for the most part if you keep them dry you won't have issues. My 940-1 hasn't rusted or patina yet and it's fairly humid in my area tho it's not like I live in a rain forest or next to the ocean.

 

[adamlau]

I try to keep all of my blades lubricated with a very thin layer of FrogLube. This includes stainless steel. Like manufactured razor blades, this is primarily to reduce the amount of force required to initiate a cut.

 

[maximus83]

I live in an extremely high humidity region (Pacific Northwest) 8 months out of the year, and I carry and use stainless folding blades indoors/outdoors in this environment constantly. I never need to put a single drop of any type of coating on my stainless blades provided I just keep them clean and wiped off any time I get them wet or get crud on them from normal usage. I do use a needle oil dropper to add 1 drop of food safe mineral/baby oil into the internal pivot mechanism of my various folders. That's it. As long as you are keep the knife clean and wiped off regularly, that's all you should ever need. I know lots of people who spend way too much thought and effort buying fancy lubes and corrosion protection for blades, but people in most cases don't need it.

Here's a special case to keep in mind though. For knives in longer-term storage (knives that you might not handle for 3+ months), you need to handle those differently, this takes a little more care. If you live in a high humidity region like I do, and you have knives (stainless or not) that are sitting in some kind of non-climate controlled storage (like a garage or shop outside your residence), I've learned the following approach works. If I don't do something similar to the following and leave knives/tools in storage in my non-heated shop or garage for many months, I will get rust even on clean, stainless knives.

• Spray or wipe down the exposed metal surfaces of the knife with a strong non-food safe solution for corrosion protection. Why? Because for knives in longer term storage, the non-food safe corrosion inhibitors contain chemicals that will make the rust protection last longer. There are many good choices for this. Could be one of the many dry lube solutions, some are recommended on this site like Tuf-Glide dry lube, or Remington Dri lube. Or something you wipe or spray on wet, which will then dry to a film-like coating that stays put for many months. WD40 company has a specialized solution that is for long-term corrosion protection, it is totally toxic and not food safe, but really great at preventing long-term rust. Others use Eezox, which is supposed to be great for this purpose. What I use for this on stored knives/tools/metal in my garage is CorrosionX, you wipe or spray it on, it dries to a fine film and lasts a long time. But there are many great options here, just remember if you pull a knife out of storage that has been wiped down with this stuff, need to wash it off before using for food prep.
• Put the stored knives in some kind of fairly tightly sealed container to minimize the humidity that gets to your knives, for example, something that has an O-ring seal. Like an ammunition canister, or a weather tight plastic storage box like these (https://www.amazon.com/Ziploc-WeatherShield-Quart-Storage-Clear/dp/B00MWTJWXS). In that storage container, include silica dry packs to reduce moisture. If you research this a bit, you can find silica dry packs that you can renew and keep reusing by sticking them in the oven every so often to dry them out again. What I do to make all this manageable: I put any high-end metal I care about that's in garage storage all in a common container, and coat with CorrosionX. I put reminders in my Gmail calendar, and twice a year, I recharge the silica dry packs in my stored containers, while once a year, I re-apply the CorrosionX.

Hope that helps, probably more than 1 way to do all this, but this has worked well for me in the humid PNW region. Any time I've done less than this with stored knives in my area, I can get rust on some of them, even on stainless. My approach is also cost-effective and fairly simple, not a lot of frequent applications of stuff to your knives, and not a lot of fancy solutions to buy.

 

[bucketstove]

I try to keep all of my blades lubricated with a very thin layer of FrogLube. This includes stainless steel. Like manufactured razor blades, this is primarily to reduce the amount of force required to initiate a cut.

Hi,
What is the difference in the amount of force required? 1 grams or 2 grams?

 

[Unicorn161]

You have a couple options. You can use food grade mineral oil, it's used in some food stuffs and unless you ingest a lot of it there is no harm or danger to humans. If you do take a shot of it it will give you diaherra. You can find it in the nutrition centers of grocery stores, and it's also cutting board oil.
You can use food safe silicone. A very thin coat will dry and have great corrosion resistance. It's used in many meat production plants for the meat cutting knives and surfaces.
There is also my favorite, wax. Carnauba, beeswax, or a mix of both. Or the mix of those and mineral oil, which is what many cutting board treatments are. Avoid the petroleum based waxes. These will take more buffing than something like Johnson's Paste Wax, or Renaissance, but it totally safe.