Opinion
For a bunch of years now I do a weekly product review on knives for AmmoLand News, that is unless a new toy pops up and sidetracks me.
I also do a lot of knife related seminars. In fact, I have a KNIFE SHARPENING/CHOOSING THE PROPER KNIFE seminar tomorrow at Sportsman’s Warehouse in Nampa, Idaho. I do a lot with knives, so it is surprising to me that I’ve never written an article on caring for your knife, but it’s probably because I’m horrible about caring for my knives. So, when I received a Froglube Knife Care Kit, I thought this would make an interesting article.
Froglube Knife Care Kit
Truth be known, I don’t think that I’m the only one that needs to attend some knife abuse counseling sessions. And when you think about it, we can kinda justify our actions. For instance, I got home last night after midnight from a Texas hog hunt. Hog hunters will wear you out. When the sun sets is when the hogs get active, especially in the hot Texas summers. So by the time you get done hunting it may easily be 2-3 a.m.
After a series of midnight to 3:00 a.m. hunts and then you have to process a pile of hogs, who amongst us is very worried if their knife is cleaned correctly or not before we hit the sack? I sure don’t.
But if we don’t clean our knives, we’re asking for them to discolor, rust and pit. And on our folders, if they get too much lint/dirt etc. stuffed into them they’ll malfunction and not lock. I frequently pull out my folder only to discover that a dime has stuck between the blade and frame or the locking slot is full of lint and won’t securely lock. And if you put a wet knife in a leather sheath, it can rust. And blood is corrosive, so you sure don’t want to put away a knife after a hunt that is covered in blood.
My old boss that collected Case knives kept them polished and stored for display in a glass shadow type of box. But here’s what I’m going to suggest for us ordinary sportsmen.
- Don’t ever put store a knife in a wet leather scabbard. Sure, you may be up in the mountains and get pounded by snow/rain but when you get home to clean your knife and let the sheath dry before you put it back in the sheath and store in the cabinet.
- Along with #1, don’t ever store a knife without cleaning off all of the blood. Blood is corrosive and will rust/pit your knife.
- Utilize a Froglube Knife Care Kit before storing your knife. Can you improvise and slap together your knife cleaning kit? Yea but will you ever? Probably not. For an MSRP of only $10.99, why not buy one and call it good. I don’t know how many knife cleanings you will get out a kit, but it has to be a bunch.
So how do you use the kit? It’s straightforward. I laid a newspaper on the kitchen table so the solvent wouldn’t harm the varnish. The kit has solvent in a pump spray bottle which I use to spray the blade and action of my folder. The kit includes a small capsule to fill and soak parts, but to me, it works great just to use the pump spray.
The kit also has a little plastic toothpick looking tool and on the other end is a swab. Use this to clean the small crevices and remove blood and lint. The instruction card that comes with the kit says that the kit comes with a microfiber towel, but mine didn’t (The specs on the website don’t include the towel though. Maybe it is just a typo on the card). No biggie though, I just used a small piece of paper towel to wipe the blade clean.
Let it dry good and then apply a small amount of the lube/preservative to all metal surfaces. Allow to bond for 5-minutes and then wipe off excess. It is that easy.
At the moment I had a Buck Lite in my pocket and was wearing a Puma SGB Skinner that I had just used this week hog hunting. I’d skinned and processed three hogs with the Puma SGB Skinner. Even though I had washed it off semi-good in the motel room after the hunt, while using the Froglube Knife Care Kit, I noticed it still had blood in the crevices.
It is easy to clean your knife for storage. And with that we’ll finish on the kit’s specs:
Kit contains:
- 1 x 1oz FrogLube Solvent
- 1 x 5ml FrogLube Paste (ACTUALLY LUBRICANT)
- 1 x Clear Jar to contain extra Paste
- 1 x Foam Cleaning Swab
About Tom Claycomb
Tom Claycomb has been an avid hunter/fisherman throughout his life as well as an outdoors writer with outdoor columns in the magazine Hunt Alaska, Bass Pro Shops, Bowhunter.net and freelances for numerous magazines and newspapers. “To properly skin your animal you will need a sharp knife. I have an e-article on Amazon Kindle titled Knife Sharpening for $.99 if you’re having trouble.”
That is exactly why I quit on carbon steel knives years ago and went to high-quality stainless. Carbon steel knives (O1, 1095, A2,etc.) should NEVER be stored in leather sheaths. And don’t assume stainless means rust-free. It’s not. It’s rust resistant, not rust proof.
I bought a Japanese whetstone years ago which is great for putting an edge on most knives. After sharpening I use the same lubricant on knives that I use on all my firearms, Mobil 1 10w30 synthetic. A quart cost approximately $8.00 and will last years.
To my best personal knowledge Frog Lube has nothing that will harm the finish in a table, knife or gun. I have been using it on my guns for years. Great stuff. Highly reccommended.
Hoplite-thanks for the info. Tom
I’ve been wondering about Frog Lube. It’s good to hear from someone other than a marketer, Gracias.
Frog Lube won the SHOT Show “Product of the year” sometime around 2013 – 2017, (i can’t remember) but I’ve been using it liberally ever since on every firearm I own. I can honestly say that it does everything it proclaims it will do (clean, lubricate, protect) and it comes in a variety of different types of applications. Which, to me, is the best aspect of the product line. That, and the fact that every type/application that I’ve ever used (that would be all of them) has worked great! I’m particularly fond of the CLP Paste.