Ultrasonic Cleaner

[Kenneth]

I was considering an Ultrasonic cleaner to clean my knives. Anyone have any experience with one? Recommendations for a unit and solutions?

[000Robert]

I just use Oil Eater then rinse in water. Dry it off with a rag, then heat it with my heat gun to make sure all the water is gone. Then oil it. I’ve been thinking about using wax on knives that I don’t plan on using, but I’m not sure that I can trust it.

[Brewbear]

I never thought of using a ultrasound bath to clean my knifes, I’d be concerned about the edges getting damaged if they touch the bath walls. Then again, that’s why we have a WE system, to fix those edges. I use Kurobara oil to protect my blades in the kitchen and by extension (read lazy… maybe a little) my folding knives as well. https://www.amazon.com/KUROBARA-Tsubaki-Japanese-Maintenance-Camellia/dp/B001TPFVHC

I bought a bottle in January 2020 at MarcH’s advice (I think) and it barely shows I’ve used any.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Brewbear.

[tcmeyer]

I have a bottle of Flitz’s “Rifle, Gun & Knife Wax,”  but I haven’t really used it enough to evaluate its performance.

While on the topic of protecting knife surfaces…  I recently bought a Zhen Damascus Nakiri knife blade from WoodCraft and it had a VERY unusual feel to the surface of the steel.  It is slick and looks highly polished and feels more like a really good finish you’d find on a car’s clear-coat.  My first reaction was “If it’s a clear-coat finish, what happens when you sharpen it?  Does the finish separate from the surface?”  Weird stuff.  I couldn’t see any edge that would reveal how the finish is attached.  Is it intended to protect the finish? This is my third knife of this set; I have the chef’s knife and the small parer.  I put scales made of Honduras rosewood on each of them and we use them more than the rest of my kitchen knives combined.  The Nakiri is the only one with the “clear-coat” (??) finish applied.

I’ve never seen a finish applied to a knife steel like this.  It’s tough as hell, but I did see a tiny bit of separation where I overlapped my polishing onto the bolsters.  I guess I won’t really see what’s going to happen until I’ve sharpened it a few times.

Is it possible that we’ll see more knives protected with a clear-coat finish in the future?  Has anyone else seen or heard of knives with protective coatings applied?

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