# Best forced patina for soft iron?



## whesssp7497

Hey everybody, 

I'm trying to force a patina on a Hontanren Iron clad wa gyuto. I love this knife and would like to force a patina on it. Does anybody have a suggestion for the best results for the soft iron. I tried beef blood and which had some decent results but when I checked it there were a few serious rust spots. Once I removed the rust the patina was almost gone. I'm trying the mustard patina now in short intervals and after 5-8 minutes there is only rust and no real patina to speak of. If anybody has any other tips or techniques I would love to hear them.


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## Dave Martell

My experience with etching iron has shown me that it won't take and hold it unless the surface is polished to near mirror condition first and then you need to do the quickest etch you can manage meaning don't soak, just dunk and neutralize. Even then there's no guarantees with iron.

I'm using a ferric chloride & vinegar mix.


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## whesssp7497

Appreciate the information. What's the best place to find ferric chloride? Also is there a reason my deba took the patina beautifully and the gyuto didn't? I'm pretty sure the deba is soft iron clad. Could it be a heat treatment thing? The deba wasn't soaked nearly as long though. Maybe half the time.


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## Dave Martell

I'm not sure what to tell you on the deba.


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## Timthebeaver

whesssp7497 said:


> Appreciate the information. What's the best place to find ferric chloride? Also is there a reason my deba took the patina beautifully and the gyuto didn't? I'm pretty sure the deba is soft iron clad. Could it be a heat treatment thing? The deba wasn't soaked nearly as long though. Maybe half the time.



Is is definitely clad with the same soft iron? Even if it is from the same maker (Mizuno) there is no guarantee they are using the same material for single/double bevel.


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## CrisAnderson27

whesssp7497 said:


> What's the best place to find ferric chloride?



I ordered mine years ago from Micro Mark (no degradation in etching quality since), but you can pick it up from Texas Knife for the same price.


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## btrancho

whesssp7497 said:


> What's the best place to find ferric chloride?.



If you have a Radio Shack store nearby they might have it on the shelf listed as PC Board Etchant. That's where I bought mine recently.


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## CrisAnderson27

btrancho said:


> If you have a Radio Shack store nearby they might have it on the shelf listed as PC Board Etchant. That's where I bought mine recently.



Lucky lol. None of mine carry it, and said they wouldn't order it in either.


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## brainsausage

Picked mine up at Radio Shack. You can typically order it from them online as well.


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## GeneH

I did this with straight up white vinegar. The blade (was a 8 inch) $10 Green River carbon blank until I broke it. I don't know what experience you have so I'll not make any assumptions and hope I'm not preaching to the choir. The key to patina, bluing, or browning (as in muzzle loader barrels) was total removal of all oils. Acetone is what I used. A lot of it. I placed the blade in a jar of vinegar and left it there a while. Can't remember how long, but just keep checking it. The reason for the soak is it even across the blade all the time and never dries funny. With a good deep browning or patina, gentle cleaning with the finest steel wool will take the rough and darkest stuff off. Look carefully and you can see some areas are black, but that not pitted rust. After using the knife a while the patina will settle down and look more naturally smooth.

Supporting what has already been posted: "...ferric chloride and mix it with water until it "looks like urine". Add a tablespoon or two of alcohol, not more than 5% of the total solution. Apply with a clean cloth, brush or swab. It is a very effective browning solution that is also _very_ economical to use. I purchased my ferric chloride from Radio Shack, and a little goes a looong way."

Here's the link:

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?action=printpage;topic=18869.0

Caution - don't let the vinegar get on the handle. You will see in my picture a dark line about a quarter inch above the blade where it's darker. Oooops.


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## gic

One person I trust recommended to me that I wrap any knife I want to force a patina on in a bunch of cheese cloth, saturate the cheese cloth with the acid (mustard and vinegar was what he suggested) and leave on as necessary.

Haven't tried it yet but it seems to make sense as the cheesecloth would provide a reservoir and you can avoid the handle relatively easily


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## Von blewitt

If you are using your Deba for fish only I wouldn't force a patina. Raw fish leaves the nicest Patina in my opinion


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## MrCoffee

cut, wipe, repeat. depending on the composition of the jigane the patina could stabilize on it's own without rust, but jigane iron is often wrought(pun intended) with impurities.
think of the patina as an ongoing becoming, and not so much an event.
live steel lives like the rest of us, day to day.
it doesn't really need a soaking, i've had best results from regular work habits. 
i used to save beef blood from the grillardin, it's cool for the first day but it goes dark after a while that i;ve learned to appreciate the evolution of the patina effect.

simon


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## NO ChoP!

My Kono Fujiyama has soft iron cladding. The edge has the most beautiful patina ever, but the iron always looks like crap. If you leave it damp for 30 seconds, it begins to turn orange. With the heavy usage, if it was mono, it would have a very well set and dark patina by now. The cladding is the only thing keeping me from proclaiming this beast as my top knife. I do have some etchant, but haven't got around to giving it a try...I'm a little scared to be honest.


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## labor of love

NO ChoP! said:


> My Kono Fujiyama has soft iron cladding. The edge has the most beautiful patina ever, but the iron always looks like crap. If you leave it damp for 30 seconds, it begins to turn orange. With the heavy usage, if it was mono, it would have a very well set and dark patina by now. The cladding is the only thing keeping me from proclaiming this beast as my top knife. I do have some etchant, but haven't got around to giving it a try...I'm a little scared to be honest.


 i feel the same way about my miz and kato. if you ever use the etchant on your fujiyama no chop, i would like to hear about how much improvement in reactivity you get.


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## Dave Jacobson

If you use ferric chloride mix it with water 50% and make sure the blade is super clean.You can use finger nail paint to seal up around the handle where you don't want it to get to. Soak it for about 3 to 4 minuets, then rinse it off under water while scrubbing it with a piece of 1500 sand paper, It works better if the liquid is warmed up. Then you need to neutralize it with baking soda or windex to stop it from further rusting.


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## toddnmd

NO ChoP! said:


> My Kono Fujiyama has soft iron cladding. The edge has the most beautiful patina ever, but the iron always looks like crap. If you leave it damp for 30 seconds, it begins to turn orange. With the heavy usage, if it was mono, it would have a very well set and dark patina by now. The cladding is the only thing keeping me from proclaiming this beast as my top knife. I do have some etchant, but haven't got around to giving it a try...I'm a little scared to be honest.



I had the same orange oxidation issue with my Kono Fuji. It was just on the surface, but I found it annoying. Last night I applied yellow mustard with bubble wrap--left it on for 10 minutes the first time, then did it a couple more times and left it on for 30 minutes. The core blue steel near the edge is a lot darker, with the soft iron being lighter, and the whole thing is mottled. It looks pretty cool, but I did it mostly for practical rather than aesthetic reasons, to decrease the reactivitiy. So far, it seems like a big improvement in that area.


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## cookinstuff

I think the cladding on the kono might be similar to the shigefusa's. I have had issues just trying to go prep vegetables on a brand new knife, kept getting rusty bits after 1 minute. Wrapped in a towel with beef blood and bubble wrap like I did my misono swedish, came back 10 minutes later hehehe whole knife rusted. My misono however has a beautiful patina from just one blood bath and it's been stable forever. Back to the shig though, I polish it up and give it a mustard attempt, after about 1 minute you can just see the brown/orange beginning to form it's not looking good, so give up on that and polish it again.

Serious business time, break out the meat prep, whatever you gotta do, I broke down a striploin or two and the shig is blue. Good times, looks great seems stable. Back to veg prep, slice a lemon, awww no more blue. Acid just wipes the blue right off. Slicing bacon, the blue comes right back. So, I polished it up, and rubbed it down with bacon while constantly wiping it clean. It is okay now with vegetables and proteins, but just don't do citruses at any cost, just grab a different knife, not even to half a lemon hehe.

That's my shigefusa patina story, hopefully you have success with your konosuke and it becomes the king of all knives, oh wait, well it sure won't be the king of the lemons if it's like my shig. Good luck, I would always try to use something food oriented on my knife before trying an etchant, that stuff scares me, I leave it to Dave. His hiro's look super cool after etching, but I'd be scared as all get out to try that on my shig, would be scared to mess it up somehow. (Not like my attempts at patina'ing weren't all screws up hehe)


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## toddnmd

cookinstuff said:


> Back to the shig though, I polish it up and give it a mustard attempt, after about 1 minute you can just see the brown/orange beginning to form it's not looking good, so give up on that and polish it again.


Yeah, I saw some orange as the mustard was on there, and I wondered, but I left it on. Later, it seemed like it was more part of the mustard. I left it on, and it wiped right off with the hot water. No rust at all, and now the various shades of grey are leaving it well protected. Left some onion slices on there intentionally to test, and it's quite stable now.


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## JohnnyChance

cookinstuff said:


> I think the cladding on the kono might be similar to the shigefusa's. I have had issues just trying to go prep vegetables on a brand new knife, kept getting rusty bits after 1 minute. Wrapped in a towel with beef blood and bubble wrap like I did my misono swedish, came back 10 minutes later hehehe whole knife rusted. My misono however has a beautiful patina from just one blood bath and it's been stable forever. Back to the shig though, I polish it up and give it a mustard attempt, after about 1 minute you can just see the brown/orange beginning to form it's not looking good, so give up on that and polish it again.
> 
> Serious business time, break out the meat prep, whatever you gotta do, I broke down a striploin or two and the shig is blue. Good times, looks great seems stable. Back to veg prep, slice a lemon, awww no more blue. Acid just wipes the blue right off. Slicing bacon, the blue comes right back. So, I polished it up, and rubbed it down with bacon while constantly wiping it clean. It is okay now with vegetables and proteins, but just don't do citruses at any cost, just grab a different knife, not even to half a lemon hehe.
> 
> That's my shigefusa patina story, hopefully you have success with your konosuke and it becomes the king of all knives, oh wait, well it sure won't be the king of the lemons if it's like my shig. Good luck, I would always try to use something food oriented on my knife before trying an etchant, that stuff scares me, I leave it to Dave. His hiro's look super cool after etching, but I'd be scared as all get out to try that on my shig, would be scared to mess it up somehow. (Not like my attempts at patina'ing weren't all screws up hehe)



I also find that bacon makes for the most stable Shigefusa patina.

I also have a Kono Fujiyama. I find the cladding to be different than the Shigefusa cladding, but it is equally reactive on some things. I have it in a 210mm petty, which gets used for all sorts of tasks, including proteins (raw & cooked) and citrus. It looks ugly basically all the time.


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## panda

anyone have any success etching soft iron?

dave - so refinish blade with micro mesh pads to say 6k and then do a quick etch? could i just wipe it on instead of dunking in a solution?


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## Dave Martell

panda said:


> dave - so refinish blade with micro mesh pads to say 6k and then do a quick etch? could i just wipe it on instead of dunking in a solution?




Try it out and see. With ethcing iron I think that no matter what advise I give it'll be off, it's always a guess and go from there type of scenario. Please let us know how it works out and what you did.


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## Chuckles

I got a pretty stable patina on the Fujiyama cladding using paper towels soaked in raw beef blood wrapped the blades and left them over night. Shorter times with mustard or blood did very little.


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## panda

chuck, so it stays put afterwords?


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## Chuckles

I remember it sticking around and topping the yellow/orange patina from happening. It started to blend into a more general blueish. Long term I am not totally sure, sold it. But looking back on posts I can see how she is doing.



> I also have a Kono Fujiyama. I find the cladding to be different than the Shigefusa cladding, but it is equally reactive on some things. I have it in a 210mm petty, which gets used for all sorts of tasks, including proteins (raw & cooked) and citrus. It looks ugly basically all the time.


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## Mauro

Has anyone tried redpepper juice? I got some interesting staining on a blue steel knife that I had to scrub pretty hard to remove with green scrubbies.


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## panda

polished blade with micro mesh pads backed with cork upto 12000 grit. then etched in a hot water/vinegar/ferric chloride solution for 30sec at a time x 3. much more stable now. it still changes patina during use, but i havent had any rust issues what so ever. 

processed a lot of roasted red peppers today and the patina was something else, looked like some sort of splatter marks, the effected areas being a lighter shade of gray than the darker grey from the etch. and of course cutting raw chicken added blue tints in some spots.

one drawback to the etch is there seems to be increased stiction/drag. is there a way to alleviate this without ruining the patina?


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## brainsausage

Polish after etching.


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## panda

Won't that negate the etching?


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## willic

I have noticed shallots make a really nice mottled patina... when I use them, I wait to rinse the blade! Also, strawberries make a really dark patina!


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