Beginner Patina Question

[Lucky2Last]

I'm almost done with my first knife, hand forged from 80CRV2. I know you guys get asked a lot of rookie questions, but I can't really find an specific answer to this question anywhere. I hope you don't mind me starting a thread about this.

I finished my first blade, and I like it, but it seemed a bit dull. So, I decided to do a vinegar and mustard patina on a portion of the blade, but every time I try to clean it, most of the patina comes off. It looks great when I first take off the vinegar soaked napkins, but it rinses off when I squirt it down with Windex to neutralize the vinegar. Is it the nature of 80CRV2 just not to get very dark (I was hoping to get it to the same color gray in my handle)? Am I not leaving it on long enough? Should I not wipe it afterwards with ammonia?

Here was my method:

One hour in vinegar, then 30 mins of splotched mustard and repeated for another 30 minutes. Looked great. When I went to clean it up, most of the gray came off. So, today, I left it in the vinegar for 3 hours. Again... it looked great until I sprayed it, then the dark gray turned very light as soon as I sprayed it down.

That's about as dark as it's getting. Any help would be appreciated.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/762791008861159425/1095127744192454656/20230409_221531.jpg

 

[AriesTheCam]

I would put it on there a lot longer. To get this pattern I leave mustard on for roughly like 8 to 10 hours. It will harden and turn black. You then just wash it off with the rough side of a dish sponge. Not sure if it's necessary but I wash it with dish soap after really good to get any residual off it. I did these like 4 days ago or so.


It's a pretty sturdy finish. I batoned with them yesterday and it did very little damage to the finish. Try to avoid the sharpened edge as much as possible. It'll be a pain to get off without excessive sharpening.

 

[Lucky2Last]

Thanks. I'm not sure why this first thread didn't post. I waited for 20 minutes before posting again, assuming I did something incorrectly. Sorry mods for the double post.

 

[Lucky2Last]

Dang... none of the videos I watched had it stay on there for nearly that long. That looks good. Is the same true for vinegar? It seems to be slower and more evenly applied with vinegar.

 

[AriesTheCam]

Dang... none of the videos I watched had it stay on there for nearly that long. That looks good. Is the same true for vinegar? It seems to be slower and more evenly applied with vinegar.

I've left apple cider vinger soaked paper towels wrapped around a knife overnight before. Nothing bad happened.. inassume white vinegar would donmuch the same. Just a dark patina with the pattern of the paper towel etched I tonthe blade. The excessive sharpening thing came into play on that one since I wrapped it all the way around.

 

[Lucky2Last]

And you just rinse with water when you're done with the vinegar? You don't do anything to neutralize it?

 

[AriesTheCam]

And you just rinse with water when you're done with the vinegar? You don't do anything to neutralize it?

I wash it with dish soap and hot water really really good and then put a food grade oil on the blade.. Not sure if anything gets neutralized per say but if you're worried about that you could try mixing a little baking soda in a cup of water.. not sure the mix you would use.. knowing me i'd probably wing it and go like 1 cup of water and a tablespoon of baking soda. Lime will nuetralize an acid as well. Hope this helps.

 

[Alex Topfer]

Stacy has suggested using trisodium phosphate to neturalise the acid, and heating the blade in the neturalising solution. I think the chemistry going on here is the conversion of various FeOx species to FePx which have greater corrosion resistance.
Diasodium phosphate might be a safer phosphate source.

I tried a complete hack version of this on a blade using phosphate rich fertiliser and it seemed to produce quite a durable patina.

Best forced patina for chefs knives

Ok guys I need some help with something. I have a few chefs knives I’m working on that will be sent out to people and I don’t want them to have to deal with the shock of patina on a carbon steel knife, the situation is complicated so I can’t explain fully here. I’m looking for an even dark...

www.bladeforums.com

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Another thing to try would be the phosphoric acid based rust removers. They come in a gel form that might work well. Phosphoric acid is a safe acid. They used to make sodas with it before carbonation became popular.

 

[A.McPherson]

Coke still uses phosphoric acid...

 

[Lucky2Last]

Another thing to try would be the phosphoric acid based rust removers. They come in a gel form that might work well. Phosphoric acid is a safe acid. They used to make sodas with it before carbonation became popular.

Would this be for darkening the blade? Or is this a way to keep the vinegar patina from wiping off after the fact?

Stacy has suggested using trisodium phosphate to neturalise the acid, and heating the blade in the neturalising solution. I think the chemistry going on here is the conversion of various FeOx species to FePx which have greater corrosion resistance.
Diasodium phosphate might be a safer phosphate source.

I tried a complete hack version of this on a blade using phosphate rich fertiliser and it seemed to produce quite a durable patina.

Best forced patina for chefs knives

Ok guys I need some help with something. I have a few chefs knives I’m working on that will be sent out to people and I don’t want them to have to deal with the shock of patina on a carbon steel knife, the situation is complicated so I can’t explain fully here. I’m looking for an even dark...

www.bladeforums.com

I have a feeling this will be a dumb question, but I have already put my carbon fiber handles on. I am assuming boiling my knife is out of the question at this point.

 

[A.McPherson]

Would this be for darkening the blade? Or is this a way to keep the vinegar patina from wiping off after the fact?

To darken/etch. Should work a bit faster than mustard or vinegar too.

 

[Natlek]

I'm almost done with my first knife, hand forged from 80CRV2. I know you guys get asked a lot of rookie questions, but I can't really find an specific answer to this question anywhere. I hope you don't mind me starting a thread about this.

I finished my first blade, and I like it, but it seemed a bit dull. So, I decided to do a vinegar and mustard patina on a portion of the blade, but every time I try to clean it, most of the patina comes off. It looks great when I first take off the vinegar soaked napkins, but it rinses off when I squirt it down with Windex to neutralize the vinegar. Is it the nature of 80CRV2 just not to get very dark (I was hoping to get it to the same color gray in my handle)? Am I not leaving it on long enough? Should I not wipe it afterwards with ammonia?

Here was my method:

One hour in vinegar, then 30 mins of splotched mustard and repeated for another 30 minutes. Looked great. When I went to clean it up, most of the gray came off. So, today, I left it in the vinegar for 3 hours. Again... it looked great until I sprayed it, then the dark gray turned very light as soon as I sprayed it down.

That's about as dark as it's getting. Any help would be appreciated.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/762791008861159425/1095127744192454656/20230409_221531.jpg

Forget vinegar , try this ................ https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/phosphoric-acid.1654333/
And post 15609 here https://www.bladeforums.com/threads...bout-your-work.1115736/page-781#post-21784695

 

[Natlek]

I have a feeling this will be a dumb question, but I have already put my carbon fiber handles on. I am assuming boiling my knife is out of the question at this point.

If you want to try phosphoric acid , wait a few days and I will try that on one of my knifes with carbon fiber scale

 

[Lucky2Last]

I was looking for the gels as recommended by Stacy, but the only thing I see is for dental hygiene. It looks like the other stuff on Amazon recommends a 3:1 dilution, which isn't a big deal, but I want to make sure I'm doing it correctly. Does anyone have a specific brand that can be easily purchased in the US?

If you want to try phosphoric acid , wait a few days and I will try that on one of my knifes with carbon fiber scale

That would be appreciated. It's a good thing to know. There's so much to learn.

 

[Natlek]

I was looking for the gels as recommended by Stacy, but the only thing I see is for dental hygiene. It looks like the other stuff on Amazon recommends a 3:1 dilution, which isn't a big deal, but I want to make sure I'm doing it correctly. Does anyone have a specific brand that can be easily purchased in the US?


That would be appreciated. It's a good thing to know. There's so much to learn.

Search for * Parkerizing * and you will find what you need

​

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Many of the rust remover products are phosphoric based. The old one I used was called Ortho-phos. They convert iton oxide to a black iron phosphate. It will leave a black finish on fresh steel if left on a while.
Look at the label to see if phosphoric acid is the main ingredient.
You can also get 85% phosphoric acid online or at a pool supply. It runs about $30 a quart. You probably could gel it with some type of starch if you needed it thickened. Corn starch, arrowroot, and tapioca starch come to mind.

The very durable black finish on guns and some knives is Parkerizing. It is process using heated manganese phosphate. A bit more complicated, but a great finish on a field or combat knife.

 

[Lucky2Last]

Thanks. I'll look that up. You guys are great.

 

[Natlek]

I was looking for the gels as recommended by Stacy, but the only thing I see is for dental hygiene. It looks like the other stuff on Amazon recommends a 3:1 dilution, which isn't a big deal, but I want to make sure I'm doing it correctly. Does anyone have a specific brand that can be easily purchased in the US?


That would be appreciated. It's a good thing to know. There's so much to learn.

Ok Lucky , you are lucky Carbon fiber and epoxy are safe in Phosphoric acid .What I used is rust remover and rust protection. Phosphoric acid solution in water. It doesn't say what the ratio is.
Hot water is used just to speed up process .If it was summer acid would work fine without hot water . After you done with etch put knife in that hot water and leave it there till bubbles stop forming .Then wipe the blade .easy task , what not belong there would be wiped fast ....Rub as hard as you want, you will get a nice satin finish in dark gray color .....durable one .

What is wrong with this steel , It should be M35 100% , it does not want to rust and now don t want to etch ?????

it lost little sharpness.......

I am not sure what happened here ...........................Finish is like I sandblasted it with some extremely fine sand blast medium ? Zillion shiny small dots, visible under magnifier ?? There are no sign of scratches from grinding bevels .It was 40 grit finish ....

I cut little in dry wood and in cardboard , no sign of damage on finish .

Look at that , I can t tell you how good this look in reality ???

 

[Lucky2Last]

Thanks, Natlek. This is what it looked like after boiling the blade in hot water for 2 minutes with a vinegar and mustard etch. It doesn't wipe off. A buddy of mine who hunts loves the look (even though I don't think it matches my handle), and wants a hunting knife with that finish. I'm going to redo mine in phosphorus and boil it in TSP for a solid gray, but I'd like to thank everyone who gave me tips on getting that patina to set better.