How to Care for a Damascus Hunting Knife After the Hunt

Short answer, since it's the question people ask right after their first season with one: clean the blade the same day, dry it all the way, wipe on a thin coat of oil, and never put it back into a wet sheath. Do those four things and a Damascus hunting knife will outlast you. Skip them and you can find rust on it by the next morning.

Here's the longer version, and why it matters more for our knives than for the stainless one in your kitchen drawer.

Why Damascus needs more care than stainless

Every Forseti hunting knife is hand-forged from high-carbon Damascus steel. The carbon is the reason the edge gets as sharp as it does and stays that way. The trade is that the steel reacts to what touches it. Water, blood and fat all go to work on it fast, and field dressing an animal covers a blade in all three.

That isn't a flaw in the knife. It's what high-carbon steel does. It's also why most of the "is something wrong with my knife?" emails we get turn out to be rust, and why we'd rather tell you now than have you find out in November.

In the field

You don't need a kit. When you finish, wipe the blade off with whatever you have: a rag, a paper towel, a handful of grass. Get the worst of it off before it dries on.

If the knife is going to ride in your pack for hours, wiped dry beats rinsed and left wet. And if you can help it, don't slide a bloody blade back into the sheath. Whatever goes into the leather stays in the leather.

When you get home

Do this the same night, not next weekend.

1. Wash it by hand. Warm water, a little dish soap, and some attention around the guard and where the blade meets the handle. No dishwasher, ever, and don't leave it soaking in the sink.
2. Dry it completely. Towel it off right away, then give it a few minutes in open air.
3. Oil it. A thin coat of mineral oil or camellia oil over the whole blade. Mineral oil is cheap, food safe, and works.
4. Check the sheath. If it got wet or bloody, let it dry out before the knife goes back in. A damp leather sheath will rust a clean blade.

If you see a spot

Don't panic. A light orange spot is surface rust, and it comes off. A little Bar Keepers Friend on a damp cloth usually does it. Rub gently, rinse, dry, and oil. Go easy, because if you scrub hard enough you'll lighten the Damascus pattern along with the rust.

The darker gray that builds up over the years is something else. That's patina. It's normal, and a lot of people think the knife looks better for it.

Before it goes away for the season

Clean it, dry it, and put on a slightly heavier coat of oil than usual. Keep it somewhere dry, which rules out most trucks and a lot of garages. If it's going to sit for months, check on it. Leather holds moisture, so pull the knife out every few weeks, look it over, and wipe on fresh oil if it looks dry.

When the edge goes, send it to us

If you sharpen your own knives, hold about 20 degrees per side. But you don't have to do it yourself. Every Forseti knife comes with free sharpening for life.

Email support@forsetisteel.com and tell us it's coming. Pack it snug with the blade guarded and ship it to us. We restore the factory edge, give the knife a once-over, and send it back, usually within one to two weeks of it arriving. You cover the shipping. The sharpening is on us for as long as you own the knife.

The off-season is the right time for it. Send it in after your last hunt and it'll be sharp and waiting before the next one.

And if a knife ever fails because of how it was made, not rust and not wear, that's what the lifetime warranty is for. We repair it or replace it, free. All of it is spelled out on one page.

The short version

We name our hunting knives after people who lived outdoors for real: Quanah Parker, Jim Baker, Daniel Boone. A knife like that is meant to be used hard and then handed down. Five minutes after every hunt is what gets it there. The rest is on us.

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