Keeping your blade clean

[Zeppelin]

Today I let a friend cut up an orange with my DelicaII. I cleaned it off as best I could with some water after that. Is there any chance of the citric acid leaving any staining? The water took all the lubrication out of the knife, so I put some more oil in it, but is there anything else I need to do? I remember getting draino on one of my knives once and it left a nasty stain, but I know citric acid isn't that powerful. So what say ya'll? I'd appreciate your input.



By the way, the girl I loaned the knife to said that was the sharpest knife she'd ever used. I like hearing people brag on my spyderco.

[Zrexxer]

I routinely wash mine out in fresh water after cutting anything sticky like fruit. Like you said, it tends to strip the lubrication out of the knife, but I hit 'em with a little compressed air to blow the water out, re-oil, and go.

But yes, to answer your question, anything acidic has a chance of marring the surface finish, just wash it off though and you should be fine.

~Z~

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." --H. L. Mencken

[Knife Knut]

You don't need to worry about citric acid.
It is one of the acids that actually promotes the formation of the chromium oxide layer which give stainless steels their corrosion resistance.
In anycase it is best to try to keep the a blade clean. If you had not cleaned it off the juice would dry and pocket lint and grit would end up sticking to the blade!

Draino is at the other end of the spectrum, being mostly NaOH aka Sodium Hydroxide aka Lye, a very strong base.
Also be aware that undiluted bleach (hypochlorite) will etch blades also.

Knife Knut on a shoestring budget.

[Zrexxer]

Knife Knut: I think what you might be referring to is the use of citric acid solutions to passivate certain stainless steels. Passivation is a process that removes free iron from the surface and promotes corrosion resistance by formation of an outer oxide protective layer, or "passive" film.

I've only seen references to Citric Acid passivation on austenitic stainless steels - basically nonhardenable, highly corrosion resistant steels such as used for cookware and process vessels. I don't know if it's a viable process for martensitic tool steels, but I'd be interested to hear if it's possible.

I'd forgotten that there's been interest in citric acid lately for this use, primarily due to the fact that it used to be done with nitric acid, which is nasty stuff to work with!

And you're right, my homebrewing days have taught me that bleach will eat up stainless! Anyone needing to sanitize stainless usually uses an iodine-based product.

~Z~

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." --H. L. Mencken

[Knife Knut]

Martensitic steels can be passivated also. Though they have less free chromium than the austenic non-cutlery steels, there is still plenty enough to form a protective layer.

As for things that really eat up stainless, strong Alkalis and things with free Clorine ions, like saltwater, disolve the protective chromium oxide oxide layer, and go to work on the more vulnerable iron underneath.

I have been wondering lately if knife companies have a passivation step in their production processes. It certainly would go a long way towards corrosion resistance on all but the edge of the blade.

John AKA Knife Knut on a shoestring budget.

[redhawk44p]

I use Rem-Dri Lube. It goes on liquid and dries to a powder and it doesn' collect lint and grit.

[Shards of Narsil]

I was eating out last night and getting tired of blunt steak knives and so I used my <img src="spyder.gif" width=15 height=15 align=middle border=0>co.

I cleaned it as best I could but only got home much later after a 3hr movie to give it a hot soapy water wash and then inspect it for food stains.

There were some splotches still stuck on the satin finish and they only went when I ran a lemon over it. My choices are limited over here and I'd rather use citric acid over Jiff. It seems to do no harm and looks good this morning.

Any suggestions for people with a limited range of options? I'm getting Militec 1 only in July and am looking for something to coat/clean the blade as well as touch up the locks and liners.

Shards

[dynaryder]

I use Goo Gone to clean my Delica all the time,no probs. It's basically concentrated citrus. Used to use it at my part time jobs to clean my box cutters. It removes the goo that comes from cutting the tape on boxes. I never washed it off the box cutters and neevr saw any discoloring.