mild patina

[hiwa]

I have some carbon (0-1) knives I would like to patina , but not very dark. Any suggestions as to what media I could try first ?

 

[freedoom]

don't put the knife in a pickle, i did that and it made a very dark patina.

 

[hiwa]

Vinegar makes it dark or even black I think.

 

[dannyp]

I think that the length of time is more important than what you use. Just do it in shorter increments until you get it to the color you want. Be aware that if you use it to cut food in the future it will continue to darken.

 

[hiwa]

Good tip on the time. I did vinegar once for a day , it got pretty dark. Maybe 30 mins. at a time would do.

 

[KennyB]

Good tip on the time. I did vinegar once for a day , it got pretty dark. Maybe 30 mins. at a time would do.

On 1095 and 1085 a 30 minute patina has come out a nice dull gray for me. I tried one hour once as well and it came out almost a matte black finish.

I usually just soak some paper towels in vinegar and wrap the blade up. Then if I don't like the texture that it left from the paper towel, I'll just do it again after resetting the towel to the pattern gets gradually covered up.

Here's a pic of my case trapper for an example: The spey got 30 minutes, the clip a whole hour.

 

[sweet_hitch-hiker]

ive ysed lemon juice on 1095 and it left it not too dark.

 

[Jason B.]

Buy a lemon, cut in half, rub on knife, let sit 1 minute, rinse under hot tap water, repeat, repeat, repeat. Keeping the blade warm seems to be the key from my experience.

You can stop when you reach a desired darkness. On O1 a nice light gray color is typical with the above method.