I was a little worried about stripping my RMD but I did it anyway. As long as you don't leave water on it, its not going to rust. It is amazing though, you can sit and watch it patina with some water on it. I put a drop of canola oil(closest thing available) and smeared it around with my finger and left it for a week and it didn't patina or rust at all. Getting the surface marks off the sabre part was a PITA to do by hand. The pits hold water and turn brown in no time. They cleaned right up with a little sandpaper though so it might have actually been little microfilings in the pits that was rusting.