How to clean and sharpen your knife - with dirt

I had used my beloved friction folder pretty hard.  For those of you that are new to the blog, I made it several years ago,  from a titanium handle and an O1 blade, and I do love it to bits.  But it got rained on and sweated on,  so I could,  for the life of me,  no longer call it a patina,  but rust,  and I just didn't realize,  and I just noticed in the woods.  Bummer,  because of course I didn't bring neither a strop or a whetstone. 

But you can be a doofus as much as you like,  just as long as you know how to get out of the fix.  😉There was some dust lying around not doing anything,  and a dry bramble.  I whittled a flat surface onto the sprout,  spit into my palm and made just a bit of mud.  Cleaned off the rust and gave the edge a little once-over,  restoring a pretty good edge sharpness.  This works because the bramble has some silicate in it. You want some fine,  but sandy sandstone  dirt (it is best when you can see a bit of twinkling reflexion) with just a bit of loam in it in order to create a little binding. Rub the surface of the blade or use just like you would use a steel strop.  

And just like that you remove the rust,  without ruining your patina too much.  

The making of the knife you can see here 

http://fimbulmyrk.blogspot.com/2020/11/chaos-and-imminent-death-and-still-alive.html

Take good care out there,  and see you soon!