I have some kind of curved machete style knife that has a leather grip. I got the knife from a garage sale and its got patches of rust on it and some kind of thick grit that seems to be caked on.
I tried a little gun solvent and oil but that really wasn't doing the trick. What can I do to get this thing spotless?
First clean the handle with Saddle Soap and coat it with clear shoe polish. This will protect it as well as making it look good. Next, take your blade and lay it on a solid hard flat surface. Use a putty knife to scrape off as much of the gritty stuff as you can. Even if it is concrete, you should be able to get almost all of it off with the putty knife. If it is something like a mixture of tree sap and dirt on it, mineral spirits form your paint store will cut it. Then finish off the cleaning with some dish soap and a scouring pad. Many of these knives were coated with a protective paint of some kind. If you want to go that route, get a good paint from your hardware store and give it a nice even coat of a flat black or olive drab paint. If you want the blade to be shiny, you may need to use a wire wheel to get it absolutely clean. Then change the wire wheel for a series of buffing pads with increasingly finer polishing compound on them. You can go all the way to jewelers rouge and put a high chrome-like shine on it if you want.
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