When it comes to outdoors knives there are a lot of choices. Some of these come with coated blades to stop corrosion, but other knives come with a polished blade that is a sight to behold. If the knife isn’t a safe queen, it will eventually show its age. With uncoated carbon steel knives, we just need to embrace it and let it develop a patina. This will help resist rust.
So what is a patina? Think about a brass lantern, or an antique silver tea/coffee pot that has dulled with age. This dull coating is a patina. We have two options with our carbon steel knives. We can either force the patina by sticking the blade in a potato, or soak it in either acidic juices or vinegar, or we can use the knife and let it develop the patina naturally and form its own pattern on the blade.
Looking at the above picture, you can see the darkest area of the blade being a diagonal from the tip down towards the area where the edge meets the handle or the guard. Not only has the blade developed a patina, but the handles have absorbed the oils from my hand and darkened. The bottom knife is a Wolf Creek Forge Kephart in 52100. If you do an image search, you will find this knife on some pine brows on top of the snow. This was one of the makers’ pics taken for the sales listing. These knives are users. With the natural aging, could you guess the age of these knives? The WCF Kephart was purchased in February 2014. The smaller antler with stacked leather was May 2014. The larger antler with stacked leather, RW Fred tried to remake the knife that was featured in Blade Magazine May 2017, so the knife would have been received during the summer of 2017. It wouldn’t surprise me if you guessed that they were older.
I like the knife to develop the patina naturally. I start with food prep and cook up a steak dinner. The juices from cutting into a properly cooked rare to medium rare steak will react with the knife which is why the blade is darkest in that particular area of the edge.
Looking at this chopper from RW Fred (the same maker as the two knives with antler and stacked leather handles) you can see that juices from cutting through the roast have turned three-fourths of the blade shades of brown and blue. Some time down the road, it will look a lot like the other three knives pictured above.
Looking at the large chopper, I have spent some time slicing lemons and you can see the black spots added to the blade. I added my vintage made in the USA Schrade Old Timer pattern 3307 for a visual comparison. I have absolutely no idea when the last time I oiled this slip joint and you can see that the blades are rust free.