Cold Bluing Toxic Food prep?

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I thought this might be of interest to all who don't already know. Apparently cold bluing is toxic for food prep. I'm not planning to cold blue my new Khukuri. I did buy plum brown and blue to redo a tomahawk, but now I'm rethinking that. If a tomahawk happened to be what was in my hand, I'd use it for food prep. I want to be able to pick up any edge I own and prepare food in the field with it without worrying about my liver or kidneys. See link below:


http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1305249-Cold-blued-not-for-food-prep
 
I imagine it would be toxic if you drank it out of the bottle, or used the knife before the bluing process was finished but once the process is neutralized I can't imagine it would be harmful. I got no scientific data to back this up though.

Bluing or browning is a controlled rust process. Part of that process is making it stop so it doesn't continue to rust, on a hot blued gun this usually shows as a white powdery substance. I've seen factory rifles with it where the bluing wasn't neutralized well enough.

Lots of things are toxic to food prep, I had an old girlfriend that was toxic to just about everything you could cook.
 
She didn't sound like a keeper. Is hot bluing possible in a home environment or is that strictly a factory thing? The thing that concerned me was that one of the guys who posted in the link I provided, called the manufacturer of a bluing product. They said absolutely not to use their bluing product on knives that are to be used for food processing. Maybe it's just a CYA statement. You're right, it seems like once the chemicals are neutralized and washed off it would be OK. On the other hand, maybe the acid or base in the food reactivate the bad stuff in the bluing. I have a background in biology, but not much in chemistry, so don't know if there's real danger. I don't have the need to do it beyond the tomahawk, and that was a want not a need. I like all the finishes that come on the HI Khukris and have no desire to change them. My original post was more of a health and safety public service announcement for those on the HI forum/Cantina considering cold bluing.
 
Hot bluing can be done in a home environment but it's much more complicated and takes equipment. Tanks, chemicals, heat source, on and one.

Also requires complete dissasembly of parts, copper or brass in the hot tank is a bad thing I'm told.

Can't imagine it would be any worse and probably far better than cutting with a rusty knife or a knife that had previously rusted and was cleaned up.
 
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