I wore a Perrin La Griffe to Friday's NY Custom Knife Show. I took it out of its sheath this morning for the first time since the show & was shocked to see that the blade was practically covered with rough, ugly orange rust.
Backing up a bit, Friday was unusually warm here in NYC with temps around 80 F. Since both the subway system & the hotel seem to practice climate control by calendar, not temperature, both were pumping heat. Although all I wore was a t-shirt with an open cotton shirt over it, I was uncomfortably warm for hours. (Even the cigar bar in the lobby was cranking out the heat.
) Earlier in the week, I had cleaned the Perrin's blade (I've deliberately allowed the handle to oxydize.) with Simichrome & then gave it a good rub down with a Tuf-Cloth.
Back to this morning, I was pissed. Even though I used Tuf-Cloth & had vent holes drilled in the sheath, apparently sweat had become trapped against the blade & did its ugly work. I anticipated hours of cleaning & polishing with Simichrome when my wife suggested I try CLR.
CLR is the stuff you see advertised on TV for removing calcium, lime & rust. (It's also sold in Genovese stores.) The bottle cautions that it is corrosive (contains sulfamic & citric acids) & can etch certain materials but I decided to take a chance.
It worked great! Using rubber gloves, I poured some on a paper towel & wiped down the blade. The rust began to come off instantly. Only a minute or so later & it was all gone, leaving only a light gray patina in a few places on the metal. I rinsed & dried the knife, applied Simichrome & polished it back to its original condition.
Of course,
YMMV. CLR may have removed the gray patina or it may have etched the blade if I used it for a longer period of time. I didn't want to take that chance. What it did do was save me a long stretch of manual polishing.
lol
