I have a couple of Becker BK knives that I may strip and force a patina on. I've seen a few YouTube videos of guys using mustard. I've read about apple cider vinegar and hear it gives a deeper darker patina (which I assume will offer more rust protection.). Anyone try it?

I did it to a CS trail hawk and thought it looked good. Can't comment on the rust protection as I stripped it to use as a test/practice cerakote part. Since that is taking forever and I wanted to use it camping recently, I did a mustard patina on it. I have also used strawberries, onion rings, and salsa to force a patina. I like the onion patina best as far as looks. It seemed to rub off fairly easily from use though. I didn't look at the mustard patina to see how it faired after use.

I know very little about this stuff but I recently got in knife making and tried forcing a patina on two of my blades recently.  I did it with a large orange, just stuck the blade all the way in and left it for an hour.  

when I get home tonight I'll take a pic and show you what it looks like.    The cell structure of an orange gives a really cool pattern to the patina

Can't wait to see it. I've seen some hit or miss mustard patinas

I cover my cutting edge with fingernail polish, then put a pattern on the blade with a applecider vinegar/yellow mustard mix and carefully submerge it in a chlorine bleach solution.

I find the bleach etches the steel much more than vinegar or mustard, it only takes a few minutes to get a decent dark patina.

I have used household bleach and pool cleaner concentrated chlorine both. The highly concentrated chlorine only takes seconds, leave it for 5 mins and it will have decent pitting rust going on.

After the patina is where I like it, I clean the blade off in running water with a plastic brush then dry it off with a paper towel and strip the fingernail polish with remover and coat the blade in oil for overnight.


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The green handle Hultafors was done with powdered concentrated chlorine over a mustard/vinegar pattern, you can see it overpowered everything and left a red rust colored pattern. The Mora's were done with household bleach chlorine over mustard/vinegar patterns.

Nice.

I know this is a tech forum, but I've got to point out how dirty the topic sounds. Thought it was some kind of kinky shit.

Now i know...nice look but don't think i'll be forcing tinas with apple cider or whatnot

I did it on a Cold Steel tomahawk head as well. I bought a disposeable meatloaf/bread pan and put the apple cider vinegar in it, then on the stove over very low heat with the tomahawk head in the pan. It took on a nice yellowish-gray color, and shows no signs of rust, and I don't do much to prevent it.

sorry it took so long to respond and sorry for the shitty photo but here are the two knives that I forced the patina on with a large orange

I left them inside of an orange for around an hour, took them out to look at the pattern and then rotated them and put them in at a different angle to layer the effect, I only left them in for around 30 minutes the second time.  



these are the first two knives that I ever made and completely by hand, I'm happy with the top one but the bottom one is shit and I hate it

Those look great.  Ever try grapefruit?

nope but I bet it would look nice, I think the little cells that are inside citrus fruit helps give it a cool pattern.

I use grapefruit. But, I usually get the orange color that goes with it. I can get most of it off with the rust eraser, I just have to patina over it sometimes.

Grapefruit is a good choice due to the size over an orange

I used a huge orange, but anything bigger than a hunting knife might be too big.   You can also use more than one orange, just slice a bit off the sides so you can square them up together.    

I cant wait to try out more, i just dont have any knives to try it on yet that are back from heat treat

So grapefruit is more likely to rust as opposed to create a nice patina?

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