JCM,
Steel wool (fine) is indeed a good rust removal system. I'm going to suggest a few other things as well that you might find useful someday, espacially if the rust/stain doesn't easily come off w/ just steel wool.
A little over a week ago I made one of my all-time most stupid mistakes..... :oops: I won't go into the deatails, but I managed to leave my favorite knife, a custom CARBON STEEL one given to me last Christmas by my wife, in a cooler in the bed of my truck for a week
; to make things worse, before putting the knife up, I had used it to open the stomeach of a dead deer and probe the stomach contents
; to make things even MORE worse, after it had been there a few days, we had a VERY HEAVY rain so that the knife was in standing water when I discovered :eek: . About 30-40% of both sides of the knife was badly STAINED :shock: , although not very rusted. Needless to say, I was nearly sick :evil: .... Anyway, after working w/ it for a total of probably 75-90 min, it once again looks very good :grin: . There are still two small areas of imperfection, but no one can notice it except me. I did most of the work by hand; one the really stubborn areas I also used a Dremel tool w/ a mild abrasive wheel followed by a felt polishing wheel w/ various polishing pastes (see below). The hand work was done w/ combo of fine steel wool, polishing paste, and oil. The pastes used (in order of effectiveness) included: Iosso Bore Paste, Simichrome Polish, Flitz, and Cutlery World Polish. The oils used (similar effectiveness) included Clenzoil and 70/30 Kroil/Shooters Choice Bore Cleaner. The Iosso REALLYL puts a shine on metal!
Hope you NEVER get in the same predicament as did I :roll: , but thought I'd pass this on, just in case..... :wink: Gary T.
