Looks like I found what carbon steel lovers have been wanting.......

[CanadianMike]

Last weekend I went looking for car wax to coat knife blades as I'm working on them (the pair I have made got covered in corrosion marks while sitting on the dining room table during the +33C day we had last week and was a pain to get off), and came across this:

http://www.mothers.com/02_products/product/images/05550-05750.jpg
http://www.mothers.com/02_products/05550-05750.html

It's pure carnauba wax paste, and dries very hard. I used this on the new knife handles, brought out an amazing tough shine after buffing, but also have coated the blades with it too and it seems to be working well. Biggest benefit? You can still use the knife for food prep. The can I got is big, maybe 8" (20cm) wide, and has enough wax in it for me to take care of dozens of knives for may years, which makes the $26CDN I paid for it worthwhile. So now I can put less hours in correcting corrosion issues on my carbon knives, and provide an amazing finish on my wood handles.

[jbrown14]

Mike,

Did you do any other kind of finish, like linseed oil, tung oil, poly, or similar; before applying the wax?

I'm in the process of finishing a knife that's been on the back-burner for almost 10 years and was just thinking about what to do for a handle finish. I've used tung oil in the past with very nice results, but never wax. Interested to hear your process.

Thanks!

Josh

[CanadianMike]

I'm still trying to sort my finish out, the previous two knives I made I used Minwax wood hardener after shaping the handle, sanded it all off (wanted it in the pores), then applied a waterbased urethane as a sealer, sanded it off, and bought Lee Valley's polymerized tung oil, applied a few coats of that, love it, then the wax. This weekend I'll be picking up the polymerized tung oil sealer and trying that out instead of the hardener/urethane I used these past weeks.

After the tung oil/buffing (before using the car wax):
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/250035_120366134714591_117036668380871_174232_3042 99_n.jpg

[CanadianMike]

So, I finished another knife I'd been working on for a while, and the customer asked me about making the blade black, so I did this:

http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/262093_10150219912489207_510619206_6960132_773017_ n.jpg

Put the knife into a glass, filled with vinegar til the blade was covered, then poured the vinegar into a small pot. Heated til simmering, poured back into the glass and let the knife sit for about 5mins, occasionally stirring. After washing the vinegar off, I covered the blade with the above carnauba wax paste, and viola! Turned out very much like gun bluing.

http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/255679_123383094412895_117036668380871_193223_6188 249_n.jpg

[feebullet]

nice patina and seal mate, love your work

[CanadianMike]

Thanks, am getting quite the following, and orders too. Carbon steel treating has been baffling me for a while, especially when it comes to something rugged that is still food safe, but gave up on that aspect while leaving a mostly finished blade indoors on a humid day and seeing the results, made me look for car wax, and scored big with this Mother's Carnauba paste. Best of all worlds, even for sealing the wood.

[Notredame11211]

Very nice Mike!!! Thank you for the great information on rustproofing my knives!