# Dark spot on TF core steel?



## DarwellianEmpire (Feb 11, 2022)

Hopefully someone here can explain this. Knife is a TF Nashiji (Shirogami 1). After a few uses a spot appears towards the center of the length of the cutting edge that is significantly darker than the surrounding patina. I've removed the patina twice and this darker patina always appears in the same spot on both sides of the blade. Any thoughts?


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## stringer (Feb 11, 2022)

DarwellianEmpire said:


> Hopefully someone here can explain this. Knife is a TF Nashiji (Shirogami 1). After a few uses a spot appears towards the center of the length of the cutting edge that is significantly darker than the surrounding patina. I've removed the patina twice and this darker patina always appears in the same spot on both sides of the blade. Any thoughts?View attachment 165175


If I had to guess, I would say that is the part of the knife you use to cut stuff with the most. But whatever it is I doubt if it is anything to worry about if it isn't affecting performance.


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## Corradobrit1 (Feb 11, 2022)

Your knife has been touched by the Wabi Sabi gods.


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## Ochazuke (Feb 11, 2022)

I second @stringer - you see this all the time in kitchens where carbon is heavily used. People usually aren't aware of how little of the blade they actually use.


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## tostadas (Feb 11, 2022)

With continued use, the rest of the core will eventually darken too


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## miggus (Oct 9, 2022)

How's your dark spot doing now, @DarwellianEmpire ?


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## DarwellianEmpire (Oct 10, 2022)

miggus said:


> How's your dark spot doing now, @DarwellianEmpire ?


I ended up selling this knife to gain funds to update to a denka.

As for the darker spot I never found and answer and I’m bummed about it. After this post I polished the core steel and used as normal a few times and without fail this one spot on the core would always be darker.

I’ve worked as a professional chef for years and have never seen this. No matter what I cut, no matter how long I let my patina build, no matter if I focused my cutting with the tip or the heel, the darker spot in the middle of the edge always remained consistently darker.


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## miggus (Oct 10, 2022)

Interesting stuff, thanks for reporting back  
It seems a very rare phenomenon, at least I havent read about something like this before. 
I hioe the Denka gives you more peace of mind


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