Natural patina on GB2 after one month of use. Forced patinas stay out!

Lapedog said:
Thanks! Those are good answers. That is what I noticed about steels with cobalt in them, that they seem to want to take a screamin' edge fairly readily.

When I asked about the ammount of time to leave a blade in acidic medium I meant how long can I keave it in before I risk damaging the blade?
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As far as damaging the blade goes, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Again, times will vary depending on steel composition and what you use to form the patina. I'm not an expert on the topic by any stretch of the imagination, but you should get a nice patina long before it does any sort of damage. I would recommend giving the edge a quick touch up after though. Best of luck to ya!
 
Knifeoholic said:
As far as damaging the blade goes, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Again, times will vary depending on steel composition and what you use to form the patina. I'm not an expert on the topic by any stretch of the imagination, but you should get a nice patina long before it does any sort of damage. I would recommend giving the edge a quick touch up after though. Best of luck to ya!
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I left my GB in vinegar overnight, when I woke up it only had a 3.3" blade...

Just kidding of course, the longer you leave the steel exposed usually just means the patina gets darker. I did do my GB overnight and it was almost black and very DLC like, no pics because I eventually sold it but you can create very different tones based on chemicals, heat and duration. I tried to patina a Rat 1 D2 and it barely changed at all in a solution that turned M4 almost black.

Caveat emptor...some non stainless steels are prone to pitting rather than surface rust or patina and can do so pretty quickly, 3V in particular is known for this. Obviously, not a good scenario.
 
So I bought a GB2 as seen in the what spyderco are you carrying today thread. I have seen many a GB1 and 2 with awesome dark gray patinas. I love patinas on carbon steels and went to town cutting acidic fruits and raw meat to get the patina going. Surprisingly, noting would leave a mark on the M-4 steel. Surprised by this unexpected stain resistance, I took apart the knife and gave the blade a hot vinegar soak for an hour. NOTHING!

I was perplexed. My uncoated rex 4 stained immediately. This M-4 gave me nothing.

I whipped up a concoction of sriracha, mustard, lemon juice and dabbed it on with a q-tip… ZILCH.

I decided to just use it and let it form slowly. Last night I used the knife, rinsed it and then got water in the pivot. I poured some rubbing alcohol in the pivot and blew out the remainder. I noticed what looked like a small black line, like 2mm long on the flat in front of the spyder hole. Thinking it was a little piece of debris, i tried to wipe it off. I could feel it but it wouldn't budge. I then grab a kitchen knife to use the tip and scrape off the debris. Well guess what????????

Not debris. I believe the rubbing alcohol removed some form of clear coating. I used the edge of the kitchen knife and was able to scrape a thin but visible coating off of the flat. The areas that were scraped, almost immediately turned gray.

Check it out.

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Now to test my hypothesis that there is a clear coating, I removed the blade and sanded it with 1000 grit sandpaper. Its now soaking in vinegar, lemon and lime juice. If the entire thing darkens, there was definitely a protective coating
 
I'm in the camp of I just can't let myself have patina on my knives. Even though I understand what it is and can appreciate it, I just don't wan't the lay person that sees my blade to think I like to carry a "rusty old neglected knife" around haha
 
The patina is interesting but not for me. My first reaction is that someone just forgot to clean their knife after a good bit of cutting. I'm old school GB1 but still wipe it down with Breakfree CLP when finished using it for some serious cutting session.
 
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I'm with the above poster. A bit hue color would be OK but darker and irregular shapes of patina here and there are absolutely a no go for me.
 
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