Anyone out there antiqued their blades to give them a "period" look?
Never gave the idea much thought, since I use mostly stainless steel blades, until I made that Green River blade that I talk about here under an earlier post. I figured I'd just let the blade "antique" itself as all carbon blades eventually do; and after gutting, skinning and butchering out 6 rabbits, 4/5 squirrels, chopping up a couple of bushels apples, plus various vegetables around the kitchen, it was starting to develop a little character on it's own. By the way, I STILL haven't had to re-sharpen that blade after doing all that; that's some seriously amazing steel! However, I was flopping around one of the forums, and a couple of guys were talking about the great results they get using mustard. So I said what the heck(or words to that effect), and after getting all the wax off the Green River Blade(ammonia) I broke out my bottle of Jalapeno Mustard and spread some on the blade. Then I realized I was hungry and made lunch. I'd stuck the mustard coated blade under the goose necked lamp I keep on my workbench both for light and as a heat source for glues etc, and after lunch(about a half hour) I removed it(the mustard had dried hard) and stuck it under the faucet to wash it off. Lo an behold under the mustard was a blade covered with reds, blues, purple and gold; kinda like color caseharding but less intense. Instantly reminded me of some adds I'd seen for repro colonial knives where the blades were the same color,but the adds refered to the colors as "fire forged". My Butt. Never could figure out how they got that color and still ended up with a hard blade. Suspect I now know...They were mustardized! In the past I'd messed around sorta with browning solution(turned the blade brown..Duh)and onion(turned the blade a kinda blotchy black) and heard of using canned tomatoes, chlorox, prussic acid(sp) and God knows what else. Anyone else tried mustard or something else and gotten such interesting results?
