Patina poll

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Cutty Sharp

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These two comments came up in a JBoida's recent 'Dispelling myths' thread:

In Japanese culture, is a patina acceptable on a knife or is it considered undesirable? Like I said, I've been around some hardcore guys who have carbon knives that are kept pristine all the time. I always have some patina on my knife, particularly on ura, where it never makes contact with a stone.
no patina in japan... people think of it as dirty

So I was wondering and thought it might be interesting to ask - yes or no? - how many of you are in favour of patinas on your knives?

Myself, if I have to choose, I'm starting to move towards a 'no patina' stance, particularly if it's a more expensive, well-finished knife. So my answer:

No.
 
Yes on patina, even though shiny things are pretty and so I think patina is a part of carbon steel.
 
Both Yes and No I think. If I had to make a choice tho, I'll go with mirror polish.. I love my shiny stuff.
 
I love the build up of patina over years of use. You can track events over time as it is marked in the blade :)
 
My good ones stay shiny. The ones I share don't.
 
This is interesting. I remember boar_d_laze commenting how he didn't like patina and always wiped his carbon knives with baking soda until the reactivity was neutralised but I haven't heard of anyone else doing this, I would say it would take a while
 
I think the patina along the edge of a stainless clad knife is cool, as in the DT and Carter below, but beyond that patina looks like improper care to me. Too many years of fastidious gun care. I can't help it.

USknives.jpg
 
all my gyutos and petys are with patina rest is not
 
My favorite blade finishes are a matte stainless and charcoal black patina.

I love patinas.
 
No patina on the single bevels yes for everything else.
 
No patina. Honestly, coming from Japanese restaurants and seeing this forum for the first time, I was shocked that people actually leave their knives with patina on purpose. I'm not saying that it's right or wrong or anything like that, but what some call a beautiful patina everyone else I had previously known has called filth. Funny how people can have opposite opinions about something like this. I don't really think it makes a huge difference, except with yanagi, in which case it will transfer flavors from one fish to others.
 
I also don't let my single bevels patina. Not really sure how that would happen, since so much of the knife get sharpened and thus polished up. My shig gets a fingerstone every time too, so it gets the patina polished off. But those are the only two.
 
No patina on single bevels and I am slowly moving away from patina on double bevels as well.
 
I love the build up of patina over years of use. You can track events over time as it is marked in the blade :)
+1

If I ever got into single-bevel knives, I would probably go the no-patina route on them, but for the other stuff I like looking at the patina and being able to tell people what particular portions of it came from cutting what and how it's changed over time. :)
 
most Asia(japan, HK , Taiwan, china....etc) don't like patina ... people think its grimy!! for me ...I like artisan looking like force patina:biggrin:
 
The only blade I had a patina issue was my 52100 kramer.When it built a heavy patina it got "grabby",so I removed the patina often.All my other blades I just keep a natural patina on.
 
I like patina's on blades; I cut stuff to try to get certain colors. I like the blue/purple patina the most. I have some 1095 blades coming in this week from HHH, so I will be working those patinas!! Now if I could just get a good pic of them!
 
I polished out a petty that was bearly black today, fresh natural stone finish on damascus is rather nice. Also dropped it when I finished, out of reflex I tried to catch it driving the heel through my finger and chipped the tip, then lost the heel later. No patina, no tip, no heel and a good bit less blood, one of those days.
 
It's very interesting to me that (some?) Asian cultures perceive patina as a hygiene issue...how do they feel about carbon steel cookware? or cast iron cookware?
 
I tend to not like patina, however I've let a few of my old Sabs color. I don't like it on J knives, but as with the Sabs I'm letting the white steel edge on one of my Gengetsus develop a natural patina to see how it looks.
 

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