I really like the way a nice patina on a vintage blade looks. Especially when paired up with the high polish of the bevel and hone wear. I hated to lose that look on some of the blades I have cleaned. Well the other night I got a crazy idea.
I generally have two tumblers running at any point. One with walnut shells and the other with those plastic pyramids that you can get from Harbor Freight.
The main downside I have noticed about the pyramids is that they create this fine dust as they beat each other up. I was going to take them and clean them up with a colander and running water. But then inspiration struck. Instead I poured about two cups of water into the tumbler. At that point I took a Fredrick Reynolds blade I had lying around with a large crack in it and tossed it into the mix. The blade is worthless, but for experimentation it would do the job great.
The next morning I went down to the basement and discovered that the media and water combined to give a great natural patina. Of course I forgot to take photos before so this morning I took a different blade that was all polished up pretty and took the before shots.




After twelve hours in the tumbler I pulled it out and took theses photos.




As you can see the simultaneous oxidation and polishing gave a great uniform look to the blade. There are a few spots of slightly different color. I think they might have been from finger oils, but I'm not sure.
I just threw it back in to take some more photos in the morning as well to see if I can get it any darker.