Thread: Dealing with heavy rust?

Clean it up the best you can.
Go to 600grt. , then 1000, from there you can polish it out. You'll be left with some pits and black rust, but as long as you can get a clean edge, you'll be good to go.

I would set the bevel before going any further. That is quite a bit of rust at the edge. Once the bevel is set and you are certain you are going to get a shaver out of it then you can get the black out of the pits with steel wool and a lot of elbow grease, see if you can reduce the pits with more sanding or put it in a set of scales and be happy with it there.

Originally Posted by RezDog

I would set the bevel before going any further. That is quite a bit of rust at the edge. Once the bevel is set and you are certain you are going to get a shaver out of it then you can get the black out of the pits with steel wool and a lot of elbow grease, see if you can reduce the pits with more sanding or put it in a set of scales and be happy with it there.

haha I didn't know the elbow grease idiom and I thought there was a magical product

Rez has a good point. There is no sense in spending a lot of time and effort on a blade only to find out the metal will not hold an edge.

Originally Posted by rolodave

Rez has a good point. There is no sense in spending a lot of time and effort on a blade only to find out the metal will not hold an edge.

I understand that but my issue is that I didn't get into honing to be able to answer that myself.
For now, I will do a second cleaning today, focusing on the blade, see where that takes me.

why do you guys think of trying something like Evapo-Rust?

Some people use, some love it, most don't find it saves any time. There is something that you can mix up using molasses that is suppose to be pretty good, but I don't use any of that. Just the old fashioned idiom and some basic supplies. LOL