Advice on cleaning knifes

[Bruno22]

I have just started cleaning my older knives. Some of them have got a fair amount of rust as I live opposite the sea. I have started with a very fine grit sand paper and WD40 and the rust seem to get off quite well. I have looked for fine steel wool but cannot find any. In the case of some of my Kuks how do I get the rust out from the scabbard? I have vacuumed the scabbard but that's not helped much. Once the knifes are cleaned how do I preserve them. I used to apply generous quantities of petroleum gel and then wrap them in plastic. Seniors please offer me some advice on this as due to neglect some of the knifes are in real bad condition and now I am very worried. Also how deep should one cut into the blade with the sandpaper if the knife is pitted. I have 3 basic types of knifes which are real antiques (the blades in these are just great) then knifes I have procured over the last 7-8 years. These consist of many kuks and some nice old style hunting knives and bowies which suffer from rust and pitting. The new tactical knives I have don't rust much.
regards
Bruno22

[mundaire]

Bruno, there is a sticky post on restoring an antique sword (under the gunsmithing section), some of the info on that may prove to be useful... For fine grade steel wool you'll just have to get some from overseas, the steel wool available in India is utter rubbish!

Cheers!
Abhijeet