Best forced patina for soft iron?

[gic]

One person I trust recommended to me that I wrap any knife I want to force a patina on in a bunch of cheese cloth, saturate the cheese cloth with the acid (mustard and vinegar was what he suggested) and leave on as necessary.

Haven't tried it yet but it seems to make sense as the cheesecloth would provide a reservoir and you can avoid the handle relatively easily

[Von blewitt]

If you are using your Deba for fish only I wouldn't force a patina. Raw fish leaves the nicest Patina in my opinion

[MrCoffee]

cut, wipe, repeat. depending on the composition of the jigane the patina could stabilize on it's own without rust, but jigane iron is often wrought(pun intended) with impurities.
think of the patina as an ongoing becoming, and not so much an event.
live steel lives like the rest of us, day to day.
it doesn't really need a soaking, i've had best results from regular work habits.
i used to save beef blood from the grillardin, it's cool for the first day but it goes dark after a while that i;ve learned to appreciate the evolution of the patina effect.

simon

[NO ChoP!]

My Kono Fujiyama has soft iron cladding. The edge has the most beautiful patina ever, but the iron always looks like crap. If you leave it damp for 30 seconds, it begins to turn orange. With the heavy usage, if it was mono, it would have a very well set and dark patina by now. The cladding is the only thing keeping me from proclaiming this beast as my top knife. I do have some etchant, but haven't got around to giving it a try...I'm a little scared to be honest.

[labor of love]

My Kono Fujiyama has soft iron cladding. The edge has the most beautiful patina ever, but the iron always looks like crap. If you leave it damp for 30 seconds, it begins to turn orange. With the heavy usage, if it was mono, it would have a very well set and dark patina by now. The cladding is the only thing keeping me from proclaiming this beast as my top knife. I do have some etchant, but haven't got around to giving it a try...I'm a little scared to be honest.

i feel the same way about my miz and kato. if you ever use the etchant on your fujiyama no chop, i would like to hear about how much improvement in reactivity you get.

[Dave Jacobson]

If you use ferric chloride mix it with water 50% and make sure the blade is super clean.You can use finger nail paint to seal up around the handle where you don't want it to get to. Soak it for about 3 to 4 minuets, then rinse it off under water while scrubbing it with a piece of 1500 sand paper, It works better if the liquid is warmed up. Then you need to neutralize it with baking soda or windex to stop it from further rusting.

[toddnmd]

My Kono Fujiyama has soft iron cladding. The edge has the most beautiful patina ever, but the iron always looks like crap. If you leave it damp for 30 seconds, it begins to turn orange. With the heavy usage, if it was mono, it would have a very well set and dark patina by now. The cladding is the only thing keeping me from proclaiming this beast as my top knife. I do have some etchant, but haven't got around to giving it a try...I'm a little scared to be honest.

I had the same orange oxidation issue with my Kono Fuji. It was just on the surface, but I found it annoying. Last night I applied yellow mustard with bubble wrap--left it on for 10 minutes the first time, then did it a couple more times and left it on for 30 minutes. The core blue steel near the edge is a lot darker, with the soft iron being lighter, and the whole thing is mottled. It looks pretty cool, but I did it mostly for practical rather than aesthetic reasons, to decrease the reactivitiy. So far, it seems like a big improvement in that area.

[cookinstuff]

I think the cladding on the kono might be similar to the shigefusa's. I have had issues just trying to go prep vegetables on a brand new knife, kept getting rusty bits after 1 minute. Wrapped in a towel with beef blood and bubble wrap like I did my misono swedish, came back 10 minutes later hehehe whole knife rusted. My misono however has a beautiful patina from just one blood bath and it's been stable forever. Back to the shig though, I polish it up and give it a mustard attempt, after about 1 minute you can just see the brown/orange beginning to form it's not looking good, so give up on that and polish it again.

Serious business time, break out the meat prep, whatever you gotta do, I broke down a striploin or two and the shig is blue. Good times, looks great seems stable. Back to veg prep, slice a lemon, awww no more blue. Acid just wipes the blue right off. Slicing bacon, the blue comes right back. So, I polished it up, and rubbed it down with bacon while constantly wiping it clean. It is okay now with vegetables and proteins, but just don't do citruses at any cost, just grab a different knife, not even to half a lemon hehe.

That's my shigefusa patina story, hopefully you have success with your konosuke and it becomes the king of all knives, oh wait, well it sure won't be the king of the lemons if it's like my shig. Good luck, I would always try to use something food oriented on my knife before trying an etchant, that stuff scares me, I leave it to Dave. His hiro's look super cool after etching, but I'd be scared as all get out to try that on my shig, would be scared to mess it up somehow. (Not like my attempts at patina'ing weren't all screws up hehe)

[toddnmd]

Back to the shig though, I polish it up and give it a mustard attempt, after about 1 minute you can just see the brown/orange beginning to form it's not looking good, so give up on that and polish it again.

Yeah, I saw some orange as the mustard was on there, and I wondered, but I left it on. Later, it seemed like it was more part of the mustard. I left it on, and it wiped right off with the hot water. No rust at all, and now the various shades of grey are leaving it well protected. Left some onion slices on there intentionally to test, and it's quite stable now.

[JohnnyChance]

I think the cladding on the kono might be similar to the shigefusa's. I have had issues just trying to go prep vegetables on a brand new knife, kept getting rusty bits after 1 minute. Wrapped in a towel with beef blood and bubble wrap like I did my misono swedish, came back 10 minutes later hehehe whole knife rusted. My misono however has a beautiful patina from just one blood bath and it's been stable forever. Back to the shig though, I polish it up and give it a mustard attempt, after about 1 minute you can just see the brown/orange beginning to form it's not looking good, so give up on that and polish it again.

Serious business time, break out the meat prep, whatever you gotta do, I broke down a striploin or two and the shig is blue. Good times, looks great seems stable. Back to veg prep, slice a lemon, awww no more blue. Acid just wipes the blue right off. Slicing bacon, the blue comes right back. So, I polished it up, and rubbed it down with bacon while constantly wiping it clean. It is okay now with vegetables and proteins, but just don't do citruses at any cost, just grab a different knife, not even to half a lemon hehe.

That's my shigefusa patina story, hopefully you have success with your konosuke and it becomes the king of all knives, oh wait, well it sure won't be the king of the lemons if it's like my shig. Good luck, I would always try to use something food oriented on my knife before trying an etchant, that stuff scares me, I leave it to Dave. His hiro's look super cool after etching, but I'd be scared as all get out to try that on my shig, would be scared to mess it up somehow. (Not like my attempts at patina'ing weren't all screws up hehe)

I also find that bacon makes for the most stable Shigefusa patina.

I also have a Kono Fujiyama. I find the cladding to be different than the Shigefusa cladding, but it is equally reactive on some things. I have it in a 210mm petty, which gets used for all sorts of tasks, including proteins (raw & cooked) and citrus. It looks ugly basically all the time.