It’s been a while since we’ve had something featured in the Gadgets section of the blog, and a knife really does sit at the top of the tree when it comes to essential tools, especially a good sharp one. This one is no exception.

This knife was my grandad’s and it’s old, very old. Estimated to be around 70 years old. So it’s done well for a well-used bit of Sheffield carbon steel. It’s also massive, longer than my carving knife, to the point it has to live on a shelf by itself as it won’t fit anywhere else.

Whilst it keeps a good edge it does look very dull and so I thought it could do with some cleaning up. Not knowing what to expect and also treating it with some caution I bought some Peek metal polish as it had good reviews and not too pricey to see what it could do. Upon opening it, whilst the smell leaves a little to desire but it looks like pretty cool stuff.

You can see below that the knife has many blemishes, dark spots and even after a wash, is heavily oxidised.

So with a slightly damp J cloth and lots of kitchen roll I set to work rubbing and buffing. I repeated a few times and had to exercise some elbow grease in a few tough spots.

When done, a quick rinse and one more buff and whilst not good as new a massive improvement was achieved. It’s now very shiny, a lot of marks have gone, just some of the older more bedded in blemishes remain.

I’ll have to work on those another day with something else but overall, very pleased with the results.