When I finally made a couple of knives with the "forge finish" on the flats (VERY narrow flats mind you) I soaked then in vinegar and then gave the rough part a fishing of sorts with a quick run on the scotch bright belt. Crevsses were still crusty, but the tops looked kind of like what I have seen on the interwebs when people use a wire wheel.That’s not too bad, at least the scale is off. I did a couple and left a forge finish, but pickled them till they were clean.
That looks pretty nice. I’ll use ferric chloride, and then some cold blueing to turn it black again. I don’t have a picture, but it looks pretty nice without having the risk of flakes of scale coming offThis is as "rustic" as I am comfortable with. Sorry for the ugly pre-handle buff picture. And yes, that is hammer/press finish, not mill scale like some "forged" blades you see.
No ferric on that. That is a "cleaned" finish. As I previously mentioned, I will be looking into the tradtional rust blueing. Actually, I plan to first try its slightly faster cousin "express' or "Belgian" bluing. The only real difference is that you heat the metal up to like 150-200F and then wipe on the solution. The heat makes it rust right away instead of having ot hand it in a humidity cabinet. A coffee finish is about as close as I have seen to old school blue, but coffee won't hide scratches finer than 320-400 like rust blue and I suspect that it isn't very durable. In my experience, cold bluing kinda sucks. I have used it to get wht I would call a "french gray" finish, but I insist on carding after applying the blue and that removes most of the color. That tells me that the color is not going to stay on there under stress. Plus cold blue is nasty ass selenium compound. I want to use bluing on kitchen knives, so good old fashioned "black rust" is probably the solution.That looks pretty nice. I’ll use ferric chloride, and then some cold blueing to turn it black again. I don’t have a picture, but it looks pretty nice without having the risk of flakes of scale coming off
Just for grins, I took both a screwdriver and a wood chisel to the finish. Not coming off, no flakes...Here’s the finish on the Takeda: definitely stuck scale. Pardon the fuzz on the handle. I wiped the whole thing with acetone and paper towel to remove the oil for the foto. DOH!
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I have a thin 2mm knife in the kitchen with some pronounced flats and angles as a test blade, including asymmetrical grind for food release… the flats just stick to foodof the right size. Will convex the twobevels soonThat's an interesting observation that FFG are bad for food to stick. I think I might try a saber grind next time to see if it really makes much difference. Of course to tell I'd have to use the same design and thickness of blade.
I mentioned before ya'll got me interested in a Nikiri - well, I finished it a couple weeks ago. Been using in kitchen and think I like it. I used a bit of junk rosewood for handle and ebony for bolster. So, the knife isn't anything fancy at all, just a "user" for the kitchen.