Patinas and metal finishes.. Huh?

M

MT Borg

Joined
Jun 14, 2007
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I was at the web site below and was thinking adding a patina would be nice on a knife but have a few questions.

Has anyone done it? Is it workable on a knife, meaning is it a just decoration that come off easily, more for an art/safe knife?

Can it be applied to our common knife making steels? Do you have some examples that we can see?

Thank you

http://www.sculptnouveau.com/index.cfm
 
They are surface treatments, and not particularly durable.
 
Hmmm...

I'm wondering if this is a coating material or if it actually cause a chemical reaction with the knife blade metal.

My only experience with patina is toning on silver coins and it's the result of a reaction between silver and chemicals in the air (primarily sulfur). You can end up with some beautiful rainbow colors but is very thin (nanometers) so I imagine any abrasion would damage the patina.

The instructions for apply this stuff on metal surfaces includes adding a clear coat so I'm guessing it's not something that would hold up well with use.
 
The search function will yield a bit of reading about patinas. A natural patina is actually suprisingly durable, try scrubbing a blade clean once it has aquired a good 10-year patina. The forced patinas I have tried are less durable but there are many ways to do it and not all are equal.
 
A traditional patina is a surface oxidization, such as gun blue, or even rust....but with different color options depending on the chemical applied to do the oxidizing. Different patinas will vary in regards to durability, depending largely on whether it is creating an opaic (?sp.) surface coating or if it is more transparent and lets the metal show through...only changing the color. Generally, the more surface oriented (assuming it doesn't etch into the surface like rust) the patina, the more fragile it will be.

Rust can be quite durable, if that is a color that is desirable. It gets fairly dark when a sealer is applied.
 
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