Anyone ever tried to force a patina on a HI Kukri?

H

Hawgsnawt

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Aug 16, 2015
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I've been thinking lately, I LOVE my new kuks...so much so that I want to rotate my Seax and M43 into my regular bushcraft gear occasionally. I worry though....that mirror polish finish on these high carbon steel blades is screaming " I just can't wait to rust on ya! " ......I'm thinking about cold bluing or hot apple cider vinegar forced patina on it to make it a touch more rust resistant...

Have any of you guys tried either?....I couldn't find any threads about it....how prone to rust with exposure are the HI blades?....I tend to make weekend trips into the woods and use the blades for light to moderate wood processing.

any advice?
 
I cold blued a micro bowie and it took it real well, turned out nice. Coworker talked me out of it before I had a chance to do anything with it so I can't speak to longevity.

Several here have used the apple vinegar, usually to remove the scale on KLVUK's but also others as well, it works well too.

I deliberately left my CAK out in the shop where it's cold uncleaned after making some kindling, kind of curious how it looks next weekend.

Personally I think they'll hold up better than one might think. Clean up and oil when you get home and you'll be read for the next trip.
 
I may not have my khuks yet (I wish USPS would unscrew itself), but I do know about dealing with rust!

If you keep the blade oiled, rust shouldn't be a problem, really. If it does appear, just hit it with some fine steel wool or lapping compound. I had some high carbon knife blanks that were left out all summer in the garage and got a nice orange rust on them. Some sandpaper and some steel wool took care of it straight away. It was the one time I didn't grease the unfinished ones before putting them in the "to finish" bin.

Edit: I forgot to mention that bluing really isn't the most durable of finishes for something that will be purposely used to hit/come into contact with things. Even if it were blued, it would soon wear off and you could still easily develop rust on the exposed metal. You would still want to keep the blued metal oiled when not in use. My guns that are blued will rust if I leave moisture on it, so I always wipe it down after taking it out hunting (rain, snow, sun, whatever). Personally, I think you may as well leave the scale on as it would be the protective layer of rust you want to get with the vinegar anyway. That is unless you don't like the look of the black scaling.

I would be more worried about there being moisture in the sheath and then storing the blade in there, especially if it is un-oiled.
 
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You can find quite a few postings on the subject by entering "khukuri forced patina" in the search field on this page. Also try alternate spellings like "kukri" and "force".

Some of the postings are mainly people posting pictures of khukuris with patinas, but the discussions also give information about how to do it, the results, etc.
 
Here's a recent thread where I posted some pictures and a quick explanation of my etching. My first post is #26, but I'd say just read the thread. It's got lots of good info. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1344201-Staining-and-Oiling

I also etched then cold blued a Villager Baby CAK, and can confirm that the blue did not hold up to even moderate chopping (it's not a big knife). I got rust spots where the blue wore off, so I hit it with 0000 steel wool.

I'd be hesitant to etch or blue a nicely polished blade; all the ones I've done were villager finish and/or had forge scale. The mirror polish is your best bet against rust.

If you have any black walnut around, that will also put a nice black patina on your blade real quick. Rub some smushed black walnut skins all over the blade, and it will be darker than a cold blue. And I've got pix of what that does to a blade in that same thread.
 
SG great pics...not sure how I botched the search but I couldn't get any threads about it to pull up for me....musta misspelled something I guess =o(

thanks for all the pointers I'll reapproach the search function and see if I can correct my mistakes..if I decide to do anything wild I'll post pics when I get done LOL
 
No problem man. I know different etchants will etch the blade differently as well, so you might wanna look into that. I used some diluted ferric chloride, pcboard etchant, on the VBCAK and it gave a yellowish gray etch, while the vinegar on the KLVUK and Tamang turned out more gray.
 
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