Inducing patina with an onion.

R

rem

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Jul 14, 2007
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I have a small custom user that I wanted a protective patina on. So I stuck it into an onion overnight. When I took it out it had the patina and a cool design left by the layers of the onion. Almost a faux damascus look to it. Pretty neat. Anyone else get anything similar?

patina.jpg
 
That looks interesting. It might be fun to try to make patterns/images with onion pieces like flowers and such.
 
That is wild. Maybe you can call it Bloomin' Onion Ladder Pattern:D
 
Unless I am way off base, this is just another mild acid etch/patina like citrus, potato, vinegar, etc, (probably weaker than citrus and a little stronger than a potato) so it is not going to work as well on stainless. The patterning is what is cool. I don't think you could get a similar pattern with a grapefruit or other big citrus because they are too wet. We need a fun picture of a big bowie or dagger being patinated by skewering up several onions like a kabob...lol.
 
Thanks for the compliments. Joe is correct, it wouldn't really work on stainless. Haha, 2knife, I like "Onionamascus". ;)
 
I also did this but I wrapped an old white t-shirt around the blade and soaked it in vinager over night, worked well.
 
Silly idea.......take slices of a very small onion or perhaps a shallot and lay them on both sides of the blade and wrap it up overnight. I'm thinking maybe some kind of repeating "bullseye" pattern.:D
 
Or you might want to try a very weak solution of water and ferrichloride. Should be enought to put patina on your carbon steel blades. Onion/vinegar and such won't work on stainless steel, but acid will.
 
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