In this video I would like to present
you my 4 favorite cleaning steps, if I want to clean a very dirty Swiss Army Knife,
without removing the scales. The first step is to clean the knife in a warm soapy water with
a brush. s The second step is to clean the knife with a soft solvent. The third step is
to clean the knife in the ultrasonic cleaner and the last step is to clean the knife with
polish paste, if you have very stubborn stains or if you have scratches or if the scale is not
shiny anymore. Now i would say, let's test which method works the best in which situation.
Stay tuned if this sounds interesting for... Hello YouTube. Welcome to another Swiss Army Knife
tip and trick video. Today's topic is how to clean dirty swiss Army Knife. This video will give you
an answer on the question: How to clean a Swiss Army Knife but for the rest of the maintaining
process that means, how to lubricate the folding mechanism of aswiss Army Knife or how to sharpen
the different tools of the Swiss Army Knife, I will show you in different videos. But now to
the question what are the most common reasons for a dirty or sticky Swiss Army Knife? I carry my
knives mostly in the from pocket of my trousers and in the pocket you will have a lot of dust and
lint. And this lint and dust can collect under the scale, in the knife body and between the layers
in the folding mechanism. So if you open all tools you will see that in the knife body you will have
dirt and dust. During my activities like hiking, camping and bushcrafting the knife comes
in contact with soil with sand with plant juice with food with resin. And resin is in my
case the the most reason for a sticky knife. I like to cook outdoors and if I prepare the
food or if I cut food, for example fruits, these sugary saps or other sticky liquids runs
back to the folding mechanism, dry there and then it can happen that it's super hard to open
and close the tools. And also movable parts on the tools himself for example on the scissors or
the pliers can become sticky and annoying to use. I must confess that I don't clean my knives often.
But after the cleaning process I usually think oh yeah it was worth the time and it's a super
good feeling if you can open and close the tools smooth again and if the knife looks clean.
Before we dive into my 4 cleaning steps I want to talk about two methods I don't recommend. The
first method I would never use is cleaning the knife in the dishwasher. Regarding the top topic
cleaning your Swiss Army Knife in the dishwasher yes or no I made two tests. One test I made two
years ago, the second test I made yesterday. So two years ago I put this Swiss Army Knife
in the dishwasher in the heaviest mode. This program runs on 80°, 1,5 hours and you can
see massive massive deformations on the scales. The surface of the scales are still shiny but I
would say they are they become a little bit Dull. Yesterday I put this brand new Swiss Army Knife
in the dishwasher in the Echo mode. This is a I guess 4 hours on 50° and it's still shiny. Ao
least I can't recognize that it's a more dull than before. I can see a little little little
deformation of the scale so I hope you can see that and that's why I would never recommend to clean your Swiss Army Knife
in the dishwasher. And on top the tools are screaming
please give me a little bit oil so dry unbelievable how dry this is
now. Please give me a little bit oil.... Can you hear that? The second method I wouldn't recommend is to
clean your Swiss Army Knives with a steam cleaner, because the steam who comes out of the
jet nozzle has more than 100° and this will deform your handles for sure. Actually
I like the way how a steam cleaner works, because you don't need any toxic substances, you don't need solvents to clean the knife and
with the high temperature you kill all bacterias and viruses and this is fantastic. The pressure
of the steam flash out all the dirt. But you have to remove the scales of the Swiss Army Knie,
because the steam is too hot for the scales. Now I want to give you a short overview over
the four different cleaning steps I want to make with these knives. At the end we can compare
the results on the different knives and like this we can find out which steps you have to go to
achieve achieve your desire result. Cleaning step number one I make with the knives number one,
two, three and four. This is with soap water and a toothbrush. Cleaning step number two I make on
knives number two, three and four. I make this with WD40 as soft solvent. Cleaning step number
three I make on Knives number three and four with my ultrasonic cleaner. And the last last cleaning
step I make with knife number four and I make this with metal polish. To test the following cleaning
methods I prepared four identical knives. These are all used Victorinox Camper knives. Two days
ago I additionally soiled these knives with resin, soil, sand and sugar water. After that I
put them on the radiator that everything is dried and sticked together. As you can
see it's super hard to open these tools. Of course this level of dirtiness is much more
than after normal use. But this should help that you can better see the cleaning progress
after every step. I scratched the numbers 1,2, 3 and 4 in the knives so that we can always
identify the knives. In the first step I let the knife soak for 10 minutes in warm water with
a few drops of liquid soap. Don't make the water too hot just like this that it's still comfortable
for your hand. I sanded an old toothbrush a little thinner so that I can put the brush head into the
knife body and the bristles can clean the springs. After that, dry the knife with a rag. After
the first wash with soapy water and the brush I was able to wash up things like sand, soil
and other dirt. But the warm water was not able to dissolve the resin from the scales and
from the tools. But a very positive aspect of this cleaning step was, that the warm water was
able to dissolve the dried fructose and sugar, which made it heavy to open and close the
tools. Now I can move the tools easy again. On the next step I would like to try to remove the
sticky resin from the tools and from the scales. For that I need a soft solvent. I like to use WD40
for that. WD40 is in my experience a very good solvent for stubborn dirt and resin. It's not too
strong that you destroy the the scales, but it is solve resin extremely well. WD40 can theoretically
remove the plasticizer from the from the scales. So I soaked these two different handle materials
over months with WD40 and I didn't notice any negative effects. What I did was for sure not
scientific but personally I'm not afraid the WD 40 will negatively affect my Swiss Army Knife
scales. What I suggest is to simply clean the scales with a rag after using WD40. Now I spray
WD40 on the knives number two three and four. I let it sink for a few minutes now. So now after 5 minutes I clean this
Swiss Army Knives with a rag. After this step with the WD40 knife number two is
quite clean. I would say 99% of the resin is away and also the dirt. For a Bushcraft knife this
would be more than enough. But as you can see here in this deep slots and also the knife
body is still a little bit dirt. So if you want to achieve the next level of cleaniness you
have to go a step further. For that I put away knife number two and with knife number three and
knife number four I go to the Ultra Sonic Cleaner. Now I let the knives clean
for 5 minutes then I rinse them with water and dry them with the copressor. So look at the level of cleanness we achieved
in this case. It is amazing but this works in my experience just with a good pre-wash. Maybe I
underestimated the ability of this device. From now on I will use it more often. If you have good
tips how to use an ultrasonic cleaner please let me know in the comment section below. We go over
to the last cleaning step on knife number four. The only thing that annoys me a little bit
on this super clean knife is the lack of shine on the scales. That's why I will try to
bring back the shine on the scale by polishing by hand with a rag and polish paste. In
my experience that works also with metal polish paste. So you don't have necessarily
to buy special plastic polish. And by the way, this metal polish I use to polish the scale
is also the polish for my leather strops. so this is the scale before I polished it.
And this is the scale after polishing it... maybe one minute. This is big
difference. Now I try to polish the blade. I have some fine scratches
here. On this part can you see That. So hold the blade flat on the table this is the most secure way that you don't hurt
yourself during the polish work. Yes, you can see the scratches
still a little bit here. But it's almost perfect. Now I try to show you the
results after the different cleaning steps. This was how the knives looks like before I started
with cleaning. This is the result after the first cleaning step with a toothbrush and a soapy water.
This is the result after the second cleaning step with WD40. This is the result after the third
cleaning step with the ultrasonic cleaner.... and this is the result after the fourt and last
cleaning step with the metal polish. Wow what a difference from before the first cleaning step
to now. But of course it's up to you how much effort you want to invest for cleaning a
knife. So my friends in the description box below you will find Three Links of all the
videos around the topic knife cleaning. In the first link I'll show you how you can remove
the scales from a Swiss Army Knife without destroying the hole for the rivet head. In
the second link I'll show you how you can remove scratches from the scales from the handles
from the Swiss Army Knife with a special plastic polish. And on the last link I'll show you how
you can remove scratches from the blade. So I hope this video gave you some ideas how you
can clean your Swiss Army Knife thanks a lot for watching don't forget to subscribe to my
channel and see you in one or two weeks. CIAO!
