Mac49

Thank you very much for these useful recommendations! I will regulary clean up the blade with grade 99.9% isopropyl alcohol and treat it with oil afterwards during the following months/year and will be very careful with the nakago. Not rushing the process is not a problem of course, especially for such traditional objects, but thank you very much for detailing, as I could have lost patience at some point without this information. I will try to send pictures in a few months to share the evolution. Again, thank you!!!

Of course, my apologies!

Hi Everyone, First of all, thank you to all of you for sharing your information. It it very useful to amateurs like me, and all of you just helped me to avoid making a big mistake. I bought a tanto directly from a Japanese online auction (see pictures attached). It is signed, but I am not expecting a great value. Of course, I lack all knowledge to make a judgement. It is the first Japanese blade I bought. My aim was to restore it in order to gain experience and buy a rusted Wakizashi or Katana blade afterwards, which I planned to restore too. In the past, I restored most of the old tools of my grandfathers, and therefore thought that I had enough experience to 'clean up' this tanto. The more I inform myself, the more it seems that I was wrong :-) The first post tackles a question that every amateur seems to have, including me: Is it better to leave the blade rusting? Given that rust harms the metal, and given that professional polishing is often too expensive compared to the value of the blade, and given that professional polishers don't seem to have time for lesser blades, given these pros are very scarce in some regions of the world, etc. The reality seems to be that a lot of blades never reach these professional polishers, and just continue to rust on someones shelf. It seems only logic that an amateur can not judge if a blade is valuable or not. So my question is: If I contact a professional polisher, and he tells me my blade is of lesser value, than what would be best (most realistic) for the blade? I want to apologize as I understand that this is a very important subject. But I really feel that everywhere I look for information, I get a theoretical answer on a practical question. I am sure that everyone would benefit from it if amateurs like me would have a (for us) understandable answer on why "it is better leave our blades to rust, than to remove its rust", even without removing much material, or using chemicals or other techniques that could affect the metal. Thank you in advance!!! Thomas 293f5e6 293f5e4 293f5e3