[Michael Edelson]

Every summer, I leave NYC for two months and live in the Catskills. I take my favorite swords with me, but leave most of my collection behind, including all of my armor.


This summer was particularly hot and humid. When I returned, the first thing I noticed was that my cheap armor looked like this:



Upon seeing that, I started to panic and ran to my swords. They looked like this:




Additionally, my expensive (custom) armor looked like this (note the contrast between the couter and breastplate...breastplate is spotless, couter is rusted):



So what's the difference? Oil. The cheap armor was oiled with mineral oil, the swords and expensive armor with Breakfree CLP.

Two months and much humidity later, the the stuff coated with Breakfree is spotless. The stuff coated with mineral oil is disgusting.

The moral of the story....mineral oil is garbage, if you value your collection, use Breakfree CLP (or Remoil or similar super synthetic protectant).

[Jean Thibodeau]

Yeah by some coincidence I started using breakfree on my Liechtenauer Maestro line trainer as I found rust on it a couple of weeks ago after I looked at it the next day after training: I think our training location was the problem because of 90 degree heat and 100% humidity when training.

Left the sword in it's leather carrying cases just a few hours to many.

Never used mineral oil but the other gun oil I was using and or renaissance wax may have been O.K. in my air conditioned home but travelling to a warm and moist training site plus getting some rain on the carrying case didn't help.

Cleaned the sword of rust but it seemed to come back real easily until I remembered an old can of Break-Free I had and use that.

The pits are still there but they are not showing new rust so far.

I think I'll go buy a new can of Break-Free before I run out of it.

Well when you remove the rust on your armour the pits are still going to be there unless you really go nuts with re-polishing but I guess it will just look like well cleaned armour that has seem campaign use but re-polished by your " pages ". ( Small consolation but I'm trying to make you feel better. )

[Eric Hejdström]

I use Ballistol oil for most things that I use every once in a while (which means all my stuff more or less) but I heard that renaissance wax is very good to. I can only second Michaels opinion about mineral oils.

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Eric Hejdström]

I don't thinke there's any way to actually prevent your gear from rust and pitting if you use it. Unless you take care of it more or less every time you touch it will rust. Ballistol is the oil I prefer for regular maintenance but as Jean say if it's going to be left on a shelf for some time, then renaissance wax might work. I think it's the curse for us who love armour...

[Michal Plezia]

I use syntetic engine oil (fresh of course ). Never had problems with rusting even when sword/ armour part wasn't used for a few months.

[Thomas R.]

I use ballistol as well, but ever so often, I find some lightly rusty spots on my helmet, bucklers or swords. Where can I get this "break free" in europe/germany? I don't know this brand. And what about this wax? Is it a coating of real wax?

Thomas

[Michael Edelson]

Breakfree is what the US military uses (or used?) on their small arms. I don't know where you can get it in Europe, but you can always order it here and have it shipped over. One large container lasts forever. Only don't get the spray can because it tends to be very high pressure and that is wasteful and messy.

I don't like wax. There are three reasons. One is that it is much harded to put on than oil and this reason is related to reason number two. If you use the item, you have no idea if you rubbed the wax off or not, and you have to either chance it or reapply it everywhere.

The last reason is that it does not displace moisture. The only way to reliably scrub moisture from steel is to use a displacing agent. Oils like Breakfree displace moisture and seal and protect. One easy, reliable step.

[Scott Hrouda]

[Michael Edelson]

[Harry J. Fletcher]

I might suggest using Flitz to polish the swords/armour first and then apply a light coat of protective oil. I like Breakfree but find it tends to leave a hardened film on my firearms over a period of time which has to removed. I have a used a product which is not a lubricant but which displaces moisture (sold at gun stores) and then apply a protective coat of oil afterwards.

Frankly, with swords I find after use I find minute rust spots that start to develop almost immediately after cutting tameshigiri even if the moisture is wiped away. This is because the target has been soaked in water and although drained still retains lots of residual moisture. What I do is to wipe off all moisture and then polish with Flitz or just spray with WD-40 and let sit five minutes and then wipe down. Usually the spots disappear but if they don't I use Flitz to polish them out and then lubricrate with a light film of Remington gun oil.

When handling a sword I always use a clean white handkerchief to handle the blade and keep at least two nearby so if someone wants to examine the sword I pass it to the person horizontally handle, blade supported with the hanky. this way the person gets the idea to handle the sword carefully and not touch it with bare hands. Many people have something in their dermal excretions which is highly acidic and can cause a lot of damage to ferrous metal.

Anyway, these are my thought on the matter. Everyone has their own ideas.

Regards,

Harry

[Colt Reeves]

You say mere minutes after cutting? I've cut water bottles and splattered water all over mine and not noticed any obvious signs of rust forming. On the other hand, I'm not particularly careful with mine, as they'd be considered junk by the elite of myArmoury.com and I've taken that attitude as well, so maybe I'm just not looking close enough. I might also clean them up too fast. I rarely have many bottles to cut at any one time.

However, I am paranoid about touching the blade with my hands, as I always feel I have to re-oil if I do, so I usually don't unless I intend to re-oil it anyway or want to play at half-swording.

Just to me-too, I also use whatever motor-oil is laying around to oil my toys. This can smell a bit and as mentioned in one of my early posts where I thought I might have rust forming, it can give the blade a yellowish/goldish cast in spots. When I leave for a semester I generally expect to have to sand off rust when I return and so far I've had rust form on the pommel and crossguards. This may have more to do with my laziness and not making sure to oil them before leaving than anything else. The blades haven't rusted a bit in their scabbards, but that may be because they're usually better oiled or because they're better protected from the enviroment there. I tried heavily oiling the furniture this time and throwing a plastic bag over them, so we'll see how that works out with the better protection.

[David Rushworth]

Most of the armour bunnies I know, myself included, use olive oil. It's environmentaly friendly, authentic, readily available, and doesn't rot the leatherwork. It also seems to "stick" to the metal well. There are long term health considerations with mineral oil, it can cause skin and other cancers from prolonged contact. I don't know about synthetics.
As an experiment I've made some "Watch Oil", Extra Virgin olive oil, heated to smoking, and then stood in sunlight in a sealed clear glass bottle for a year. One of the things I noticed about it is that it doesn't curdle in cold weather the way plain EV olive oil does.
My own armour is blued, so rust is not the big problem it is with bright, but it still needs protection and maintainence.

[Michael Edelson]

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Ed Toton]

Yeah, I've been noticing the mineral oil starting to fail me as well. I have some discolored spots on a couple of my A&A pieces, though the Albion blades have stood up fine. I may have to investigate Breakfree.

[Harry J. Fletcher]

Hi Michael, Jean, Colt,

I only mentioned firearms because I used to shoot a lot of semi auto pistols. What with tight tolerances the teflon tends to flake after build up might cause a malfunction although I just don't like the looks of it flaking off into the mechanism so I assiduously clean it when it starts to flake and apply fresh Breakfree. On swords...? I do find round little brown spots if I look very closely after cutting especially with one of my katanas and I have found a few on a display sword so I take care to polish them out as mentioned or apply WD-40 which is not a lubricant but does wonders at removing rust or even prerust spots.

I am a big fan of Flitz and use it to polish the rifling of my pistol and rifle barrels and began using it on my swords as well. it is kind of expensive and hard to find but IMHO well worth it. Give it a try and see for yourself. Although it could be used as a stand alone I would apply a light coat of gun oil after polishing.

Regards,

Harry

[Brian K.]

Just as a mention of note; to those of you who have any bluing on your sword's, like hilt aging or symbol work, breakfree will slowly remove the bluing. So if you're wanting to keep that aged looking hilt, do not use breakfree on it. The whole idea behind breakfree is to slowly remove metal degradation, i.e. rust. I use 3-in-1 on components that are blued, as any machine oil enhances bluing.

[Scott Hrouda]

[Michael Edelson]

Just wanted to add...in case you hate the smell of Breakfree, Remoil is almost as good (it seemed just as good to me, but tests say it's not quite as good as breakfree), has no teflon and smells very, very nice.