6/14/2023 0 Comments Mustard patina![]() Meaning, if you leave it on the countertop, still wet, you don't have to worry as much about your knife gathering rust. It Lets You Be Lazy: The longer your patina has developed, the more effective it will be to prevent rust when exposed to moisture.Since no other oxidation can occur, the patina effectively forms a seal around your knife. It Makes Your Blade Last Longer: Since a patina prevents further corrosion, your blade is likely to last a lifetime or beyond.Rust is the enemy, and a patina is its worst nightmare. A Patina Seals Your Steel: A thin layer of patina can prevent rust from forming.How exactly does a patina make a good knife better? Rust is the punishment you receive from treating a knife poorly.Ĭarbon steel is already a better choice for a knife over stainless, but the patina takes it a step further. Basically, a patina is rewarded naturally when you take good care of a knife. If you start to develop red/orange, flaky spots of discoloration, you've got rust, not a patina. Get enough magnetite that you start to see staining and coloring in the black/gray spectrum, and you've got yourself a developing patina. Essentially, a patina can have a wide variety of minerals and chemicals in its makeup, but magnetite is one of the most common types of beneficial oxidation in these circumstances. When you keep a blade clean and dry, you get smaller amounts of oxidation, which allows for magnetite production. When moisture and oxygen make contact with carbon steel, you get oxidation. Thankfully, there is a way to protect your steel, and you guessed it: a patina. Without chromium, carbon steel is left more vulnerable to corrosions, like oxidation that can eat into the metal and eventually ruin your blade. It is less likely to form on stainless steel due to the presence of chromium. A patina is a type of aging that happens naturally to carbon steel and stainless steel to some extent. ![]() Just as cast iron needs to be seasoned to be at its best, so too does a carbon steel knife. So, to learn more about the benefits of a patina and how you can get your own started, read on. Developing a nice patina on a carbon steel blade is something you should do to protect your trade's unique tools. If you were worried that a patina is going to ruin your knife, fret no more. A patina works by leaving no desirable area on the blade for rust to form. While they are both forms of oxidation, rust will eat into the edge and cause damage to the metal, whereas a patina will form a sort of finished seal that can prevent corrosion and future rust damage. A patina is a form of oxidation, like rust, but does that mean you've ruined your knife? Or does a patina actually protect your steel?Ī patina formed on steel does help to prevent rust from forming on a steel blade. It's basically unavoidable, to some extent, but you might not be sure whether you should be alarmed or not when it develops. However, it's deferentially heat treated, which creates a hardness line similar in appearance.If you're invested in a nice knife, you've more than likely had a run-in with a patina. (And yes, I know that my hatchet does not have a real hamon. You can see that the lines on my bushcraft knife are much thicker, because I left the mustard on it for a longer period of time. That is because I didn't leave the mustard on quite long enough. The main visual difference you can see between my fake and the real hamon is the depth of the line. In other words: Part of the blade is harder than the other part, and the intersection point between hard and soft steel is marked by a very classy looking line. The change of hardness in the metal is visible in a dark line running across the blade the hamon. The blade would end up with a very hard cutting edge, and a soft spine and back. Japanese smiths would coat the spine and the back of their blades with a clay mixture which, when quenched, caused the part of the blade coated with clay to cool down much slower than the bare metal. A real hamon line is created during the heat treatment of the steel. Well, the difference is actually pretty big. ![]() By this time some of you (the newbies) are probably wondering what the difference is between this hamon-looking-line I just created, and the real deal.
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