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Update: soaked my cleaver in vinegar overnight and woke up to a ruined handle
I run a small shop in Boise and my carbon steel cleaver had a nasty rust spot near the bolster, so a guy on a knife forum said to soak the whole thing in white vinegar overnight to strip it. Seemed easy enough, so I dropped it in a bucket at closing time and went home. Came back at 6am and the blade was clean, sure, but the wooden handle had swelled up like a sponge and the tang was loose in two spots. I dried it out for three days and the handle still rocks when I chop, which means I've got to rehandle a knife I've used for six years. Turns out vinegar eats at wood glue and pulls moisture way deeper than you'd think, and I should have just used a paste on the blade and kept the handle wrapped in a rag. So learn from my mistake, if you've got a rusted carbon blade, keep the acid away from anything wood or pinned. Has anyone here rehandled a cleaver with a hidden tang before, and did you epoxy it or go with cutlers rivets?
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betty_ward23d ago
Man, I have to push back here because vinegar soaks are actually fine if you know what you're doing. The problem was not the vinegar, it was that you dunked the whole knife when you only had rust on the blade near the bolster. A guy on a forum told you to soak the whole thing and you did it without thinking it through, that is on the advice and on you, not on vinegar. Plenty of people strip rust off carbon steel with white vinegar all the time and their handles survive just fine because they only submerge the metal part. As for rehandling, skip the epoxy and go with cutlers rivets if the tang is already loose in spots, because epoxy will just crack out again the next time that wood moves with the seasons.
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