All About Pocket Knives

Just curious, but for those of you who like to hasten the process, what's your "acid" of choice for forcing a patina? Apple, potato, mustard, other?

I like to soak the blade in a glass of vinegar.

I've only done it a few times because I prefer clean & shiny blades...but, when certain types of steel start spotting, showing signs of corrosion/rust, I use white vinegar because it generally gives a more uniform (i.e., not splotchy or colorful) black patina that looks somewhat similar to TiNi coating. Also, I don't know about other substances used to force a patina, but the white vinegar patina can be easily polished off so the blade can be returned to its original state if so desired.

Here's just one of my knives that I forced a patina on using white vinegar: Case 3107CV I know that Ivoryman has done a lot of experimenting using various substances to force different types/colors of patinas, so hopefully he will chime in and share some of his wisdom.

I’ve used vinegar and it gives a good dark even color. If I’m using a “liquid” I like plain old yellow mustard better since you can goop it on with a Qtip and let it sit as long as you like with less mess, and it gives some other colors other than just black. But the easies may be to just stick the blade in a potato, leave it for a while and if it isn’t dark enough, stick it back in longer. Or, just slice a few tomatoes. That works too.

I would add a caveat about the length of time to leave the material on the blade. I did a knife awhile back that had suffered some cel degradation damage and used white vinegar and left it in about a week! Absolutely ruined the blades!The only thing I will ever use white vinegar for is to de-scent a dog after a," polecat encounter".Works much better than tomato products.
A good natural patina creator is the brine used in pickle jars.

Coke a cola or an apple either one just over nite

White vinegar soak did a decent job after only about 5 or 6 hours. I recommend putting tape over the bolsters, though, as the vinegar fumes will discolor the nickel silver (although the discoloration did polish out with a little Simichrome).

These two I stuck into large onions for a few days. This one I used to eat corned beef and cabbage with mustard vinegar and horseradish I like to think I encouraged the patina not really forced.

I used it everyday day for a week it got darker each day. If you are lucky the onion gives an almost Damascus pattern.

When using vinegar I heat it in the microwave and only leave the blade in for about 30 minutes.
If left for a week I bet it did eat up the blade.

The blade on this one was about a 40 minute soak in a glass of vinegar. I did the back spring too and I think it turned out slightly better than the blade.

eveled wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 12:41 am I used it everyday day for a week it got darker each day. CD7777AD-B00C-4D45-886F-2F304CB791F0.jpeg
If you are lucky the onion gives an almost Damascus pattern.
B9B27155-97F9-4BE8-8045-54C552C32083.jpeg

Nice slab of corned beef.

Railsplitter wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 1:05 am The blade on this one was about a 40 minute soak in a glass of vinegar. I did the back spring too and I think it turned out slightly better than the blade.

The longer you leave it in the vinegar the darker the patina.

BTW--How did you do the back spring?

QTCut5 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 1:26 am
The longer you leave it in the vinegar the darker the patina.

BTW--How did you do the back spring?

Yeah, the vinegar kind of played a little trick on me. I wanted the blade slightly lighter in color. I pulled it out of the glass when I thought it looked just right but it looked lighter while submerged than it actually was.

Here's an example of how I did the back spring. The paper towel in the photo is dry but when I actually did this I used a vinegar soaked paper towel. The splash guard on my bathroom sink helped ensure that the curve of the back spring at the butt end got treated too.

That's clever...I'm going to try that.

Thanks, Rick.

PS--Did the vinegar discolor the liners or edges of the bolsters?

eveled, are those mini-Randalls that you are giving a patina ?
kj

QTCut5 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 1:57 am That's clever...I'm going to try that.

Thanks, Rick.

PS--Did the vinegar discolor the liners or edges of the bolsters?

I'm looking at the knife right now and the liners look just like they look in my picture. I posted it again below so you don't have to jump back a page to see it.

I honestly don't know if that yellowish tint on the bottom liner was there before I started or not but I didn't do anything special to the liners. Just wiped them off with a damp rag and then a dry rag to remove the vinegar. I did use some simichrome polish on the bolsters but they weren't bad. Had to polish the shield too. I must have had some vinegar on my hands that transferred to the shield.

cudgee wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 1:23 am

eveled wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 12:41 am I used it everyday day for a week it got darker each day. CD7777AD-B00C-4D45-886F-2F304CB791F0.jpeg
If you are lucky the onion gives an almost Damascus pattern.
B9B27155-97F9-4BE8-8045-54C552C32083.jpeg

Nice slab of corned beef.

Thanks, I think about that meal every time I use that knife. Only a week until St Patrick’s day, I cook it outside in a 5 gallon stainless steel pot, at least 4 roasts, (2red 2 grey) sometimes a pork shoulder too. two cabbages a bag of onions a bag of carrots.

Call me crazy but when a knife gets a patina on a meal like that, it imparts a positive energy into a blade that a paper towel and vinegar can’t deliver.

kootenay joe wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 5:20 am eveled, are those mini-Randalls that you are giving a patina ?
kj

No a full size Model 19 Bushmaster and a full size Model 21 Little Game. They were presents for getting my two plumbing licenses.

Bought 2 years apart but look like a matched set. They compliment each other well. One could carve a hair the other one could open I coconut.

The big pieces of stag make them look off proportionaly.

Carrots, peas in the pod, red grapes, and blackberries or blackberry vines. Just cut or scrape some juice out and leave it for a few. Squeeze the juice out of the vine or grape or carrot out on the blade, let sit for 10 minutes, rinse off, repeat. Those give me blue hues and even color and slowly darken. But if you put it on there for hours at a time or over night it turns rancid black. Fine if you want black, but I like the blues. This is for basic coat. Then it's slice whatever veggies I use, or slice what come what may and wipe when finished. Deep colors, good coverage, no corrosion when and if you decide to polish it off.

eveled wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 10:34 am

cudgee wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 1:23 am

eveled wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 12:41 am I used it everyday day for a week it got darker each day. CD7777AD-B00C-4D45-886F-2F304CB791F0.jpeg
If you are lucky the onion gives an almost Damascus pattern.
B9B27155-97F9-4BE8-8045-54C552C32083.jpeg

Nice slab of corned beef.

Thanks, I think about that meal every time I use that knife. Only a week until St Patrick’s day, I cook it outside in a 5 gallon stainless steel pot, at least 4 roasts, (2red 2 grey) sometimes a pork shoulder too. two cabbages a bag of onions a bag of carrots.

Call me crazy but when a knife gets a patina on a meal like that, it imparts a positive energy into a blade that a paper towel and vinegar can’t deliver.

I'll call ya' crazy. You cannot beat a natural patina, i just let mine develop over time. Vinegar is for fish and chips.

edge213 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 12:54 am When using vinegar I heat it in the microwave and only leave the blade in for about 30 minutes.
If left for a week I bet it did eat up the blade.

Truth be told I forgot about it! The handles were off(they were the reason I decided to patina it)and when I did take it out it was eaten up pretty bad.Still usable though.Here are a couple pics of it before and after.The original handles deteriorated on the liner side and didn't even show on the top side.

Not sure, but thought I have seen someplace about forcing patina on stainless steel blades. Can't find anything on that now that I have a knife coming with stainless blades that I would like to put a patina on.

Grump01 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 05, 2024 8:05 pm Not sure, but thought I have seen someplace about forcing patina on stainless steel blades. Can't find anything on that now that I have a knife coming with stainless blades that I would like to put a patina on.

Interesting. I thought a “feature” of stainless steel is that it doesn’t rust or tarnish easily. I’ll be interested to see what the trick is.

Ken

I think everyone has covered this pretty well, but for me slicing tomatoes gives a good, natural patina. I would clean the blades after each use and wipe them with food-grade Mineral Oil. The color becomes more brown and varied, rather than the grey vinegar patina.
Slicing strawberries gave it a darker patina with shades if blue. Very lovely!
I don't know if applying oil every time helped or not, but it appeared to me that it gave the patina a better look.
One meal is enough to establish a good patina. One week of meal prep will make it perfect.