My sons Iaido sword has some rust on it. He always uses mineral oil to clean and re-oil the blade after every sword class. Yet he has rust. He was told to use a old car wax to remove the rust.

I'm looking at a bottle of Turtle Wax Chrome Polich and Rust Remover. It says " Retard corrosion by sealing metal with a protective finish that repels rain, ice, snow and salt."

Should he switch to this instead of the oil or just 1 time rust remover and back to the oil? Will the sealer affect the oil?

hi,

STOP...obviously the Iaito is not the std. Zn/Al alloy but carbon steel. or am I wrong?

If his Iaito is of value or suspected value (say a Gunto of unknown worth) rust removal is for professionals. One can try cutting open the used Uchiko ball, use a felt cloth and some Uchiko powder (i.e. finest grit sandpaper ever homemade) and rub the rust (having great care to not get cut), clean, check, repeat.

BUT more than likely you didnt buy son Nihonto for Iaido class, any hoo...its still good practice for one day he may own Nihonto.

where is rust? how is sword stored? is Uchiko, rice paper used to clean old oil 1st? Heres a rust maker-what wood is saya made of Honoki wood, if not saya may be rust maker.

hope I helped -Karl. Peace.

Sorry. I forgot to mention it a Paul Chen Iaido sword. Carbon steel. Nothing special. Rust is approx. mid center of blade. Sword is cleaned and oiled after every sword class. Then stored in saya for a week until next class.

marmaduke

You have to get the rust off...all of it off.

Since the sword might be rather expensive but nothing special your first task is to get the rust off.

How much rust is there?....if its just a little then it can be delt with relativley easily....if its a lot.....then you could be looking at a serious problem.

Have you spoken to the maker?....sometimes its worth a call....see what they have to say before you do something that might be hard to undo.

Does the sword have an edge on it? or is it a simple non-edged iaito?

What oil are you using?......could be the stuff is causeing the rust.

Could be the saya itself is damp inside.

Maybe your not getting the oil coated everywhere.

Could be the steel itself.

Lots of possible causes........maybe we can narrow them down a bit.

Not much to add except that a good friend of mine has a Paul Chen that is also prone to rusting, despite his obsessive maintenance of it (seriously, he spends Friday night 'polishing his sword'--oh wait, maybe I misunderstood that at the time, lol). Anyway, he thinks it is the steel used.

--Chris

This is the sword (and also where I got it from...

http://sbg-sword-store.sword-buyers-guide.com/non-sharpened-iaito.html

Also got him the matching Wakizashi. No problem with that.
Using standard 1 Qt. bottle of generic Mineral oil.
Have been told to find something called NOXON 7. ??

Hey Marmaduke,
Noxon is a minimally abrasive metal polish that will remove the rust without overly damaging the finish. Since it is just a Hanwei iaito, you don't need to be too worried about hurting the finish so any ammonia based metal polish will remove and neutralize the rust that's forming. Don't use car wax on a carbon steel blade, it can lead to further problems down the road.

The rust is forming because you are using standard mineral oil, which is really too thick to work well. Hanwei swords are fairly aggressively etched to make them more eye catching. This means that the steel will rust fairly easily because it is fairly porous on the surface. I recommend shelling out the 15 bucks or so to get some regular choji oil, which is much lighter than even light mineral oil from the store. Alternatively, you can use a light machine oil like sewing machine lubricant or 3-in-1 oil.

Good luck!