Hey Gahagan,
I've pretty much been using O-1 exclusively since 2002. If heat treated properly, it's a great steel, holds an edge well, and will weather better than most people think.
I usually just polish my knives from time to time with a knife polish. As a test, I polished a knife up good, and decided I would not clean it for a year.
I carried it probably 3 or 4 days a week during that time without doing any cleaning on it. The one thing I did was wipe it off if it got something on it, but I did not use any type of polish or anything.
After about a year, the knife had a nice gray petina, but no rust. My knives have kind of a classic look, so the old looking blade didn't bother me at all.
After the year, I got out my knife polish, and polished it back it up. Save a few scratches, the blade looked good as new.
However, if you were going to put the knife up and not use it for long periods of time, I would put a good coat of wax on it like the other guys mentioned.
Hope this helped. -chris
Chris Crawford - Chris Crawford Knives