finish reactivity

I have seen some knives that seem to rust instantly upon contact with any acidic food. Some stainless seem impervious to this and could lay there in perpetuity without changing. But what steels are mildly reactive so that a patina will develop, but not so fast as to require constant rinsing and wiping?

 

ofc like you say in the title - degree of finish matters.

In my (limited) experience O1, blue and 52100 are pretty forgiving and "slower" to react. While the lower alloyed carbon steels are fast, like 1095 and white steel.
There would also be the "semi-stainless" steels, but I haven't tried them for myself so I can't say anything on that.

 

52100 in my experience was really slow. The super blue core on my Hiromotos is also slow. The white steel of my deba is slow

 

V2 on Wakui is average I would say. It doesn't r requires immediate cleaning and is pretty low reactive once the patina appears.

It's usually the carbon/iron cladding that adds problems. Take Zakuri knives as example.

 

I agree with MotoMike. O1 is slow and also it's very good steel for kitchen knives IMO.

 

I'm with Anton on this, the cladding seems to be way more reactive than any of the white or blue core steel that I have.

 

Anton can probably attest to this....W2 is wicked fast to color, but once colored it stabilizes almost immediately. I haven't been able to make mine rust here in my house...meaning with basic care (wiping when you change foods you're cutting, cleaning up after you're finished cutting, etc) it's been really pleasant in use.

That said, I polish my knives to 5k grit then add loose abrasives to the polishing pad on top of it...which I'm sure has a lot to do with the lack of rust as well...but even my EDC knives which are little better than belt finish don't have much issue, and patina beautifully when used to cut food.

 

Oops, I forgot to mention W2. Probably because in my eyes W2 from Chris and knives from 52100 that I've seen are all pretty much semi-stainless. I mean I haven't seen rust on them. Probably most problematic steel that I've encountered so far is white#1 (used on two Japanese chisels). It manages to develop rust even during sharpening.

 

Like Cris said W2 colors very fast, but I have never had one rust. Very stable patina imo. 52100 and O1 seem similar as far as reactivity for me, but varying levels of polish may affect that.

Isn't V2 semi stainless?

 

This is good stuff guys.

 

I've never had rust problems with any core steel but have had iron cladding that would rust if you looked at it wrong.

 

You mean like this?



That happened while cutting tomatoes lol. Literally...WHILE cutting tomatoes. Like, two of them lol.

 

looks yummy!!

 

Fresh pico de gallo lol. Tomatoes, jalepenos, onions, cilantro, lime, and garlic. Whenever I get a knife I've never used in for a rehandle I'll make up a batch to see how it handles highly acidic foods both for edge retention and of course to test the geometry. After that it all goes filed in my mental library of how each brand performs .

 

Gonna try that tomorrow.

 

Be sure to season to taste. I like simple salt and pepper, but I've also made it with McCormick Montreal Steak Seasoning for a twist...and...well...freakin yum! There's no real ratio either...other than probably 'more tomatoes' than any single other ingredient, lol.

Oh, and don't forget the corn chips .

 

Oh...and...sorry for the derail lol. Although it seems like maybe at least one person benefited!

 

2

 

Add smoked sea salt to your Pico. Just a tiny bit, to taste.

Iron cladding and I have never really gotten along so well, in general. I've had 2 Shigs and sold them both for this reason.
The cladding on a Kato can be handled though. Each time I got a new one I would make caramelized onion soup, which consisted of slicing 10 to 15 pounds of onions. This blued up the cladding very nicely, and helped kickstart a very attractive, controllable patina.
But for the Shigs, I just couldn't get the same results.