Description
We believe the clear varnish that covers the blade is only good for preventing the blade rusting from the factory to you.
It does a decent job of it too, however it is not robust! When you start using your machete, it quickly scratches exposing the steel underneath. Where the coating is scratched, surface rust will form.
Surface rust is normal on any carbon steel machete and good maintenance is scrubbing the body of the blade with #000 or #0000 steel wool and WD40 (or RP7, Inox etc).
If you have a scratched coating, you cannot clean the body of the blade properly.
When is a good time to remove the coating?
Generally, there is no great hurry to do this. We have suggested many times that performing any maintenance on a machete is best done when the edge is dull. The down side to waiting too long is the scratched areas will patina while the rest of the blade will look shiny. This is not a real issue as machetes are workhorses, not show pieces. Over time, the whole blade will patina with use.
Here is a link to one of the methods we use to remove the blade coating.
Would you like this done for you before we ship your machete?
We are happy to take care of this for you if you like.We don’t use any abrasives in this option, just the removal of the blade coating.
We cannot get under the timber handle to remove the coating. A tiny strip of the coating (about 1 mm) remains in front of the handle unless we pull the handle off.
Once we are done, we coat the steel with a lot of (food grade) Inox to protect it from rust during transit however, machetes are good at rusting. It’s very unlikely to happen in a few weeks but this is just scrubbed off leaving a patina. Your machete will naturally patina over time, very light surface rust is the start of this process.
Remember to thoroughly clean off any oil on the blade, handle and inside the sheath before use!
Oil makes the retention system much less effective. Care should be taken not to invert the sheath and machete in this situation (you don’t want a sharp machete sliding out of the sheath). Our sheaths are not designed to secure a machete when held upside down.
