I went for the black Scrapper 6 so I have some corrosion protection. Thom seems pretty happy with S7's rust resistance, I figure surface patina should be fine as long as we dont get rust pits and other structural damage- no real problem... Let me know how the patina developes and how it cleans off please mate! Just as an aside I have an old and not much loved Eickhorn combat knife in (some type of) carbon steel, that is just my gardening knife and really doesn't get any maintainence other than a grind on a fine (low speed) carborundom wheel every so often. That knife goes away 'wet', 'wet and muddy' or 'wet muddy and sap covered'.. hardly a mark on it after 3 years(ish)! Perhaps carbon steel isn't the rot terror of my nightmares afterall.