Rusty Blades

[Artisan]

Everyone has mentioned the blades in the bag with the wet gear problem...no one has yet pointed out that by far worse is simply your own sweaty hands. Your sweat and the oils in your skin are very corrosive to uncoated steel, especially if you've just scrubbed the crap out of it to get the rust off! Look at where the rust forms first: near the guard, from when you pick up and plug in the weapon, and near the foible if you are a "by hand" straightener, and just below the barrel if you tend to carry several weapons at once in a handfull by the tips,

[Rolls]

I had this problem for a long time, as is VERY evident on my old practice jacket.

I finally solved by not putting anything in my bag (except body cords). Why do I have a bag? For tournaments. But when I go to practice, I keep my glove, jacket, lame, and weapons OUT of the bag. When I get home the mask in a spare bathtub, hang the jacket and lame from a shower rod, and put the weapon in a corner of a larger open room.

As far as getting rust stains out. I tried a whole bottle of RID rust remover and it never worked. On the plus side, newbs always do think it's blood stains which makes me look a bit intimidating.

The most important thing for me is NOT to put my weapons in my bag. At least not at regular practices. By not putting my sweaty gear in the bag either, it's always nice and dry for those extnded trips to far away tournaments.

Rolls.

[Hyperion1250]

Some kind of abrasive pad to get the rust out, and use a finer one to polish it back up.... as for a preventative, i've been using
3-in-1, its a good machine oil, and if you're really worried about spots, just wipe down the blade with a dry rag or something.

[JEC]

A little piece of "extra fine" steel wool has been the best tool as soon as I see any rust. I use two bags, one for weapons and the other for clothing, and I try to let my mask dried off before putting it back on my weapons bag.

[npkeith]

I do the PVC pipe thing - I went to the local DIY place and bought a length of 1/2" irrigation pipe, some caps and some of the special cement plumbers use to stick the stuff together. I live in Southern California, which would be a desert if we didn't steal ...err.. pipe water in from the Owens valley and Colorado river, so the air is pretty dry must of the time. I don't worry about trapping moisture in the tube. I cut the tube to length (front of bell guard to tip), cap one end, and put a connector sleeve on the other. The sleeve gives me a lip for the next bit - I tie a jug sling hitch (also called a bottle knot) around the neck of the tube which then gives me a few handy lengths of string to tie the weapon into the tube.

I still have to do occasional maintenance with some fine sandpaper and steel wool, but it only takes me 30 minutes to do 2 electric epees, 2 electric foils and a dry foil.

I've seen several comments about wd-40, vaseline, wax etc. I've used wd-40 myself, but I realised that it has solvents in it very similar to the kind of things that you use to get the glue out of the wire groove in a weapon, and I got a little nervous. Has anyone had a problem with wd-40 eating the glue?