to my understanding it is a controlled rusting and corrosion

yep

Patina From Wikipedia,

I've done Cold Bluing - it works out nicely:

ohhh. thanks james bond.

oh...so bluing is a patina.

I had a friend who used to boil carbon steel blades in bleach to make them look old. That's probably too extreme though. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" /> He was into early American Buckskinner stuff and wanted the steel to come out looking old and pitted... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

I "antiqued" a bowie once by leaving it in the salt marsh behind my yard for a week. It looked very "natural".

No.

Bluing is using Gun Blue a metal dye to color the metal. Patina is a natural occurring or man made aging of the item you are applying the Patina look to.

The Elephant Ivory on a old Pianos white keys will turn yellow with age. That, EMF is it's natural Patina.

The High Carbon Steel named 1085 is a common steel for knife makers and by dabbing on a Frenches Yellow Mustard or the like you will add a Patina to the steel by chemically altering the appearance of it as to make it age in your eyes.

It is a unique way to accelerate the natural aging or Patina process of the steel. I hope that clears it up for you a bit.

I used the Frenches Mustard applied with my fingertip on a junk camp knife of mine that is made from 1085 High Carbon steel. In the pix you will see where I dipped and touched the blade leaving lumpy drops of mustard to eat into the steels natural satin finish.
It destroyed the satin finish and left a blueish grey dotted smeary nasty PATINA all over both sides of the blade.
I like you had read about it and had no clue as to what it really was or how to do it on steel. So I read up on it and did it.
I am however very glad that I did it to a blade which I care nothing about. I learned that I would never do it to a piece of steel I intend on using or care about in the least.
At least I know now. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif" alt="" />







Silly me. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Peace.

That's right. If you look in the picture sticky, I put up a picture several months ago of a kuk that shows the hardened area. The difference is clearly visable.

Great thread guys. I was inspired by this. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> So I just applied some yellow mustard to my now satin Dog Father. If anyone is interested I will post pics of the results. I am not sure how long it will take but I figure I should see something my morning.

I did the same thing to one of Justin's RD9s last year and it looked sweet.

Do post so we can see how it turned out DN!

there's no if there at all, TL! please, post up some pics when you get finished.

There was a good bit on my Scrapper 6 LE after I carved my pumpkin last year. It looked REALLY good, and tried to get the rest of the blade like the tip. It failed I think because only the skin of the pumpkin was able to put a patina on it.

Hey guys. Well I applied some regular Albertson's yellow mustard to my DF last night and let it sit for about 6 hours. Here is the result:




I think it looks pretty cool. I am not sure why it colors different spots on the blade darher than others. Anyone know? Tempering differences?