Gentlemen,

I have a SA dagger with a rusting scabbard (see pictures). Until now, I have put gunoil on it, but I do not think this is the right thing to do in order to stop the rusting.

Any advise is more than welcome.

Greetings

Herr Mann

Picture 2

Hello Herr Mann,you could try a "Hammerite" product,called Kurust.You can get it at most car accessory shopsit worked quite well for me,But as you must no once rust starts,its almost impossible to stop, Regards nats

Your scabbard is already pitted from the rust, I suspect. You have a decision to make... repair or leave alone. If you leave it alone eventually the rust will eat all of the way through the scabbard and leave holes. If you choose to repair it then you must remove the rust and fill the pits. Since you cannot anodize the scabbard, you could paint it black and call it an NSKK. Some will say yes.. some will say no. You don't need to decide right away. The scabbard will continue to slowly deteriorate for years.

if you oil it. it will probably outlast us..

That depends on how old you are.

Herr Mann, The original finish on the scabbard was a brown oxide controlled rusting process on steel which was passivated (made relatively inert). Not unlike in concept to the Eloxierung (anodizing) passivation process used on aluminum to also prevent corrosion. Unfortunately what you now have is rust that is active and uncontrolled. Causing pitting and other kinds of mischief that will only get worse as time goes on.

The choice of what to do is yours. There are no good alternatives that will leave what is left of the original finish intact. To stop the rust that is going on under the outside surface layer (and possibly inside the scabbard body as well judging from the corrosion spots on the blade) the rust has to be completely removed. Probably the most cost effective way of doing that is using a chemical rust remover, which will (unfortunately) in all probability also take the “good rust” (ie: the brown oxide finish) off with it.

Depending on the severity of the pitting, the scabbard could then be hand polished to approximate its original state to prepare it for “Brünierung” (browning) which is what the Germans did when they made it. If it is too pitted to be browned then as was mentioned the pits could be filled and the scabbard then painted without fear at least of having rust nodules popping out a year or two from now.

Herr Mann,

You got some good advice here. Rust is an chemical reaction and a deterioration. Yours is covered with ferric oxides, which are easily removed with sandpaper. The pits and any holes (especially on the scabbard edge there) may have to be filled. I agree that you have to intervene beyond lubricant at this point.

But here is the good news! If you had an Army or a Teno officer scabbard, that rust damage would be very, very hard to fix on a dimpled scabbard. You would have to do spot welding or some other cure (Manfred and Vern could elaborate on that). Since the SA scabbards are smooth--you can fix this one much more easily.

See if you can remove the scabbard fittings. Try lubricating the screws first--be careful as they strip easily. You may even have to get new screws. Then, sand the scabbard with 400 to 600 grit sandpaper and see what you have. Fill the pits and holes with an epoxy.



Sand it down until smooth (you might need a more medium grit sandpaper at first), wash it, dry it, and spray paint it. A semi-gloss brown is not too hard to match. You can even coat it with a gloss silicone finish to give it a real nice shine and finish. Adding the fittings after will take a bit of fitting without scratching your new paintjob, but it should be OK.

I have only done one of these, but it came out pretty good if I do say so myself. The real experts on this are Manfred and Vern.

Nats, Skyline, Castle, Fred, Börse,

Thank you so much for the valuable advise. As an intervention does not seems to be urgent, I will postpone my decision to my next holiday, Then I will have time for the removal of the rust.

Anyway, this was the first but also the last dagger with rust that I have bought.

Again, thanks a lot for the help on this one!

Herr Mann

Hello Herr Mann,I forgot to mention in my first post,if you use that "Kurust" to treat the scabbard, the acids in it will blue all the exposed metal,so it would not really work on an SA scabbard,regards nats