Mustard

I had read Wayne Goddards directions for applying a mustard finish in Blade Magazine and decided to try it two weeks ago. This is what mine turned out like. I really like the finish a lot.

I left the tang and spine kinda blotchy by only putting the mustard on one time which left some areas of that part of the knife unmustarded (<<<is that a real word?). It's easy to see where it got mustard and where it didn't.

I put mustard on the face of the blade 5 times. The 1st four coats of mustard were random, leaving space between the mustard. After four coats the entire face of the blade had a nice patina, because all of the blade face had seen the mustard. The fifth coat was a thin layer all over the face of the blade. This last layer really evened it out nicely. I cold blued mine after the mustard finish. The cold blue is an awesome way to finish up the mustard patina.

I used a little 0000 steel wool between each mustard application.

I like yours a lot. How many times did you put the mustard on?

Ickie
 
Wow,you're right,the cold blue is awsome looking-I put five different coats on in random patterns for about ten minutes each.
 
Shawn fu said:
Wow,you're right,the cold blue is awsome looking-I put five different coats on in random patterns for about ten minutes each.
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I leave the mustard on until it's dried completely through. It's still working if it's damp. When I did the one in the picture I left it on for two to four hours per application. It basically takes me a whole day to do a mustard patina.

I did a test one on some W2 stock that I had made that knife from. Here's what I did to determine what to do.

  1. I called Wayne Goddard first, and discussed how he does it. He was very friendly and helpful.
  2. I then took a piece of 6" long W2 flat stock (the same material as the knife that I wanted to patina) and ground and handsanded it to an 800 grit finish.
  3. The piece was 2" wide. I hand filed a groove every inch down the hand sanded piece giving me 6 test sections on the face of the test piece.
  4. I cleaned the entire piece with acetone.
  5. I then put random dabs of mustard on the entire piece with my finger tip. I didn't let any dab of mustard touch any others around it.
  6. After the mustard dried, I cleaned it off with water and 0000 steel wool, and then cleaned it with acetone again.
  7. I then put a second set of mustard dabs in the sections marked 2 through 5. All of these dabs were in areas between where the first application was applied. Some of them touched the first set, but none of the mustard on the second dabs touched each other.
  8. I cleaned it off again with the steel wool and acetone.
  9. I put a third application of mustard on sections 3 through 6, hitting the areas that hadn't yet received mustard.
  10. I then cleaned it again.
  11. I put a fourth application on sections 4 thorugh 6.
  12. Cleaned it off again.
  13. I put a fifth applcation on sections 5 and 6.
  14. I cleaned it off again. Since I noticed not much difference between sections 4, 5 and 6 (section 5 and 6 had one more application of mustard than section 4 at this point), I decided to then continue the experiment in a different fashion.
  15. I applied a thin even coat of mustard to section 6.
  16. I cleaned it off again. (I liked the way 6 looked better than all of the other sections.)
  17. I put a thin coat of mustard on section 4 to make sure I'd like it as much as 6.
  18. I cleaned it off and 4 and 6 looked identical. A nice even, but random patina. Section 5 looked nice, but a little more blotchy.
  19. I decided to continue the test by seeing how cold gun blue affected the appearance of the mustard patinia.
  20. I painted the bottom half of each section of the bars length with red fingernail polish to act as a resist to the cold gun blue. This would show me what the mustard patina of each section would look like both blued and without blue.
  21. I applied the gun blue to the exposed areas of the mustard patina and left it on for about 30 seconds, and then quickly cleaned it with water and 0000 steel wool. I cleaned it with acetone and like the blued parts of the bar better.
  22. I then painted red fingernail polish on the bar again, covering all of the 'non blued' areas as well as half of the 'blued area'.
  23. I then put a second coat of gun blue on the bar letting it sit until it was a very dark color.
  24. After cleaning off the blue and fingernail polish I liked the darker section, but not anymore or less than the lighter blued section.
  25. This competed my experiment and led me to:
  • 800 grit finish
  • 4 random applications of mustard, allowing it to dry completely between each application.
  • 1 thin coat of mustard on the entire blaid.
  • 1 coat of cold gun blue for 30 seconds.
  • For the exposed tang edges and the back spine of the blade I used the one coat of mustard (section 1 on the test piece) with 30 seonds of cold blue.

I might experiment with combining the mustard patina with a light ferric chloride/water etch. I'm thinking of coating the entire blued area and half of the unblued area with the red fingernail polish and then lightly etching it to see what it looks like. Basically, this will give me a test bar with 6 different sections that have 4 different finishes in each section. I'll have 24 different mustard/blue/ferric chloride combinations to choose from on each knife design. Right now (before the ferric etch test) I have 18 finishes on a test sample to choose from, so that I get just the look that I'm after.

I'll take a picture of the bar and post it here, when the stinking airlines find my luggage! My camera is in my luggage from my recent trip, which is supposed to arrive some time today.

Ickie
 
Shawn fu said:
After seeing a post by Javelina,I was inspired to try a mustard patina on one of the blades that I made for a friend-It was the 4th one I made and had an 800 grit satin finish,and I wasn't really happy with it-I must say that I had my doubts,but was really surprised at the results.
http://s119.photobucket.com/albums/o149/Shawn-fu/?action=view&current=721016.jpg
I hope he is as happy with it as I am.-Comments appreciated.
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Hi Shawn,

I like the way your knife came out. . . It really came out with a nice pattern and color!!! :)

Way to go!!! :thumbup:

-Mike
 
Thanks for the info,Ikie-very scientific-looking back,I guess that I should've done a test peice first.If you try the mustard and FeCl please post pics of that also.
Thanks Mike,and thanks for the inspiration:thumbup:
 
Shawn fu said:
Thanks for the info,Ikie-very scientific-looking back,I guess that I should've done a test peice first.If you try the mustard and FeCl please post pics of that also.
Thanks Mike,and thanks for the inspiration:thumbup:
Click to expand...

Ask and you shall receive. I did do the FeCl etching test on my test piece. I also did another layer of mustard on the right end of the test piece. Here is what you're looking at.

Sections are 1 through 6 from left to right in the photos. Rows are explained from Bottom to top.

  • IMG 1271,,,The first application of mustard to all six sections.
  • IMG 1275,,.The fifth application of mustard. Section 1 had one appliction, section 2 had 2 applications, section 3 had 3, section 4 had 4, and sections five and six have the fifth applicaiton on them in this photo.
  • IMG 1293 is a close up of section 4. You can see parts of 3 and 5 to either side.
  • IMG 1295...This is a photo of the entire test piece. Sections 1 has one application still, 2 had 2, 3 had 3, 4 had 4, 5 had 5, and 6 had 6. From bottom to top the treatment for each section was: Bottom row is with no FeCl etch and no bluing. Second row up is with 3 minute FeCl etch. Third row up is with 30 seconds of bluing. Fourth row up is with a 3 minute bluing after the original 30 second bluing.
  • IMG 1303...Closeup of Sections 5 and 6 after all mustard applications, etching and bluing.

Some things that surpised me:

The 30 second bluing was actually darker than the bluing that was applied a second time. I don't know what to think about that. The 30 second bluing isn't very consistent or uniform though, as compared to the top row that received the longer second bluing.

The etch in the second row up from the bottom is very nice. I really like it!

A fifth application of mustard looks about the same after bluing or etching than only four applications. However, without bluing or etching the fifth application makes a difference.

A sixth application of mustard didn't make a whole lot of difference in the appearance.

I took these to 800 grit I think, but didn't spend a lot of time making sure I got all of the scratches out like I would on a knife. This process really shows scratch marks, so it's imperative that all scratches be polished out!

My decisions based on this experiment will be to usually apply mustard six times. The first five will be random dots of mustard. The sixth application will be a thin layer over the entire knife. I will follow most of them up with 3+ minute FeCl etch. I'm working on a 52100 hunting knife right now, that my customer wants a mustard finish on. Since I'm going to be edge quenching the blade, it will be interested to see if the hardening line shows up through the mustard patina when I etch it. I'm thinking that it probably will. Ok, I'm hoping that it will.

Any thoughts or comments on my experiment or any ideas how to improve it would be greatly appreciated.

Ickie
 
Shawn
I've been playing with mustard finishes on most of my carbon blades, I love the outcome. On one huge friction folder I did a dijon mustard "hamon" with stripes from the hamon to the back of the blade then let it semi dry. while the mustard was still damp I painted the space between the mustard stripes with white vinegar. The result was amazing. The mustard coating left hard lines at the edge of the mustard coated areas with an oil on water effect (pinks, blues and yellow tones) between, and the white vinegar left dark grey stripes between. I love the effect.

Cheers

Robin
 
-Great results,Ikie-I agree with you in that the second band from the bottom is the best-nice even color,and the perfect shade.As for suggestions,it seems like the possibilities are endless.
-Hey Robin,have you got any pics-it sounds like you got some really cool results.
 
Pipeman said:
Shawn
I've been playing with mustard finishes on most of my carbon blades, I love the outcome. On one huge friction folder I did a dijon mustard "hamon" with stripes from the hamon to the back of the blade then let it semi dry. while the mustard was still damp I painted the space between the mustard stripes with white vinegar. The result was amazing. The mustard coating left hard lines at the edge of the mustard coated areas with an oil on water effect (pinks, blues and yellow tones) between, and the white vinegar left dark grey stripes between. I love the effect.

Cheers

Robin
Click to expand...

It is sooooooooo unfair to tease us with descriptions and not post any pictures. Pictures please!!!

Ickie
 
The knife I posted has stainless bolsters-and I got mustard all over them-at least 10-15 minutes didn't touch it at all.So my guess would be no.
 
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