Thread: Rusting

What about plain vanilla mineral oil, or Johnson's baby oil? Just as good? Bad for the razor??

I use mineral oil or Camellia oil. Sometimes health food stores or supermarkets carry Camellia as "Tea Seed Cooking Oil", usually close to the olive oil. Some Chinese food stores also have it.

Cool Care Plus - not only does it do rust prevention, it lubricates, and it acts as virucide, fungicide, bactericide and tuberculocide. Spray it on and ten minutes later wipe it off with a dry towel.

FWIW, when I was in the military it was considered incorrect to use WD-40 on weapons. The reason being is that after the propellent evaporated a loose film was left to dry on the metal that allowed moisture/humidity between the film and the metal, trapping the moisture next to the metal. So the proper lubricant was the order of the day. May be wrong, I cant prove it one way or the other, its just whats been beaten into my head over the years.

Im pretty sure that WD40 can also damage most scales. At any rate, WD40 was never designed as the cure all its considered to be today. It was orrigionally a water repellant. You'd spray it on and when it dried up the film would repel water.

FWIW
I have used WD-40 for over a year on my razors with no ill effects to date...
I however don't spray it on the razor I use a small piece of TP then just wipe the blade. The only thing that I could see being bad is that it could cause skin irritation if you didn't wipe it off first....

Many of the police Dept's and the military discontinued use of WD-40 back in the 80's because there was a notion that it could penetrate a primer pocket on a round and cause a misfire from a dead primer. Whether this was ever proved I still don't know......

Plain old mineral oil will do just fine, and will cost a lot less. Sewing machine oil is a good example, so is unscented baby oil. Probably the best choice is food grade white oil (often sold as honing oil).

Originally Posted by nun2sharp

FWIW, when I was in the military it was considered incorrect to use WD-40 on weapons. The reason being is that after the propellent evaporated a loose film was left to dry on the metal that allowed moisture/humidity between the film and the metal, trapping the moisture next to the metal. So the proper lubricant was the order of the day. May be wrong, I cant prove it one way or the other, its just whats been beaten into my head over the years.

I definately agree. When I was in the AirForce I maintained all sorts of weapons both aircraft and ground, rifles, pistols, automatic weapons, etc. Anyone that brought WD40 into the shop was beat about the head and shoulders. It works great for removing stuck bolts but doesnt help with rust protection. I have had to clean rust off things "protected" by WD40. What we used was CLP or Break Free.

Bob

Originally Posted by fritz

What about plain vanilla mineral oil, or Johnson's baby oil? Just as good? Bad for the razor??

This is what I use, works great, easy to find, is non toxic, and won't hurt scales, etc... I have never seen anyone post a downside to this.

-Chief

I use a hair dryer and then put the razor away with out any oil. If there is any oil left on the blade I want it to be able to evaporate away. However if I am going away for a long time or for a blade that needs work I will give it a liberal coating of vasaline. Doesn't seem to do any damage, but can stain some scales.