Rust Issues

[Josh]

I had the same issue Dan 🙂 i clean them every time as well…. I have since been putting a drop of oil on each side and rubbing it in on the whole stone face. It’s been working great with no negative effects that I have seen.

[Dan Clement]

Are you using something like Ballistol or CLP? Do you have any issues with the metal dust sticking to the oil? If not, this might solve the issue of the rust for me. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Josh]

Actually I’m using CLP 🙂 and it’s been working great. I think I found out my problem though… I put my wet choseras in the tupperware container with my diamond stones :-(. I did just order some silica gel packets that I will throw in with my stones too. They’re cheap 🙂

[Dan Clement]

Thanks so much. I wanted to give the oil suggestion a try for a few days and then reply back. I cleaned the diamond stones as usual “warm soapy water, an old disposable electric toothbrush”, dried the stones with a towel and applied my favorite oil (ballistol). The Ballistol immediately pulled up a bunch of gunk from the diamond stones that the soap, water and toothbrush did not get. In fact,
It was like I had not cleaned the stones at all giving the amount of gunk that came out of the stones.

I washed the gunk out, dried the stones again and applied another light coat of oil. I have had no rust issues since using your suggestion of the oil and it has not affected the performance of the stones. I like to use Ballistol because it is not toxic to humans and many of the knives I sharpen are kitchen knives.

Thanks so much for the help, I truly appreciate it and perhaps this will help others with the same issue.

Dan…

[Ralph Honeycutt]

Dan, I did the same (using Ballistol) about a week ago and am happy with the results so far. I was initially concerned that there might be a tendency for the diamond stones to get gunked up, but this did not happen. I will probably continue to use it in this manner until I notice any potential problems. I plan to use it only on the diamond stones.

Ralph

[Dan Clement]

Ralph, thanks for the info. It looks like oil is a good cleaner and keeps the rust away. I just keep finding more and more uses for the ballistol and being non-toxic is a bonus.

[Ralph Honeycutt]

Dan, I cannot say this is true for just any other oil/lubricant, but the key perhaps with Ballistol (IMO) is that it emulisfies with water and it seems to resist to allowing accumulation of grit/shavings (low gunk factor) from sharpening. Someone on this forum could probably give us a Chemistry lesson on this, but I am not qualified since I had 2 years of freshman chemistry. LOL

Ralph

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