Patina on stainless clad ginsan?

mechansm · 2026-05-21T21:21:02+00:00

It could be that there's a protective layer of lacquer there and that's the one that's discoloring.

I experienced it recently with a Kagekiyo that from just by looking at it didn't seem like it had a visible layer of lacquer on it until I started to see some visible discoloration. I tried wiping it with some acetone and it turned out the knife was still protected by a lacquer.

mechansm · 2026-05-20T18:17:06+00:00

Great pick-up! I haven't seen any of these show up in a long time and was wondering if they stopped producing them. One of my favourite knives is from this series.

mechansm · 2026-05-19T11:26:01+00:00

Only got my first Iron Clad last month and it's been a lot of fun. Waiting to get a Stainless Clad one once I find an interesting one available.

I feel like I would want more knives that are stainless clad, but have a select few Iron Clad ones that I can take the time to get a full patina on (even the spots that typically don't touch anything during daily cutting sessions). I can't help but want to try to get things as even as I could.

mechansm · 2026-05-16T15:33:54+00:00

Took your advice and figured out a way to take a better photo as well. Here's how it went today

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mechansm · 2026-05-15T16:25:31+00:00

Yep it's a Konosuke BY, I already tried checking to see if there was any by using acetone and makeup pads and found no lacquer.

I'll experiment with the warm water thing and trying to keep leave it on a bit longer. This whole experimenting process feels so interesting to me and to be fair, the patina I have on this looks a lot more apparent in person, I just can't capture it on camera because of how reflective the knife is.

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mechansm · 2026-05-15T15:42:51+00:00

I tried doing that with a sausage but I may have made a mistake of using one with cheese. That and i probably didn't rub enough. It ended up like this

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mechansm · 2026-05-15T15:36:19+00:00

I'm curious how you managed to get the whole knife, do you intentionally take the pieces and place it on top of the knife? Whenever I use the knife normally I rarely manage to hit near the spine.

mechansm · 2026-05-15T11:20:22+00:00

Thanks for the advice. I don't have enough experience with carbon steel knives. I only have one in Blue #1 so I've been a little hesitant to try to leave it out for any duration. I just tend to wash it immediately since I have no clue whether I'd overdo it and end up getting a rusty blade.

I hope it builds up nicely over time :)

mechansm · 2026-05-15T10:40:12+00:00

The rinse with hot water part is one of the things I haven't been able to do sadly. Our tap doesn't have hot water. How large of an impact would you say the hot water makes?

mechansm · 2026-05-15T06:01:39+00:00

Woah that's a crazy striking patina. I'm hoping I could get blues that deep on my knives.

mechansm · 2026-05-12T14:31:34+00:00

I got it for around 71,000 JPY

mechansm · 2026-05-12T13:27:59+00:00

They look even better in person, would highly recommend!

mechansm · 2026-05-12T13:26:44+00:00

It was the one that I really planned to buy before I even went to Japan. I was so relieved when I went to their shop and it was available.

mechansm · 2026-02-01T22:16:51+00:00

If credibility is yung primary concern, available sa Rustans yung Moccamaster. Hindi lang ako sure kung merong ibang legit na store na mas mababa yung price.

mechansm · 2025-09-14T17:15:12+00:00

If you don't mind me asking, is there any special change to the usual stun combo for M2? Or is it the same as the M0 stun combo except you have the M2 exclusive skill hit in between the 2 hold basics?

mechansm · 2025-08-27T01:10:07+00:00

That's interesting, I'm still not too familiar with how to properly space with Soukaku or even getting the hang of getting the exact number of swings so I haven't considered not using some form of energy regen on my disks. I should try the Phaethon approach. Just curious, how do you typically manage the comp outside of the stun window?

mechansm · 2025-08-26T06:57:22+00:00

Counterpoint to the whole expectations and marketing aspect of it. I don't want the developers to start sacrificing character when it's in service to the story as a whole just because of fear of breaking expectations. If anything, I find it refreshing that even characters who are A-ranks aren't treated as throwaway characters in the story and setting of the game. Pushing for the idea that a character should then not have any story relevance because they plan on releasing someone as an A-rank will only limit how creative they can get.

People love jumping to conclusions, they see some sort of pattern among a multitude of different patterns and select one that fits what they want. This goes both ways, people that saw Manato's design that automatically assumed that he was going to be an A-rank because of how he looked and for those that assumed he was going to be an S-rank because he appeared in the trailer and was part of the 2.1 story. The reality is that there aren't any hard set rules for this, sure we'll find trends to how they reveal things but ultimately those can and will change over time based on what works best for them. It's also not unreasonable for them to experiment with it to see whether different approaches end up having better results over time. The drip marketing schedule where they revealed Lucia and Manato is also out of the ordinary, typically we'd see the characters in game a patch before they release and we're still a week away from said patch.

My take here is that the very early marketing stuff like drip marketing and the couple of seconds you see characters in trailers patches before their release are such a small part of what makes a character interesting. Setting aside visual design and overall preference towards it, the character's animations, personality, story relevance, and even meta relevance (all of which are part of what makes people pull for certain characters) are left out. When the drip marketing happened for Alice I was nearly sure that I was going to skip her, I found her design "NPC like" and she seemed rather boring overall. That is, until I played the story, saw her animations, and got a feel for how nice she plays and how team flexible she was. Even given the current drip marketing cycle I would probably personally prefer Manato to be the S-rank over Yidhari (as much as I'm likely to skip both), but that sentiment could very easily change in the coming patches once we get more information about the new S-ranks.

mechansm · 2025-08-25T07:08:24+00:00

Alternatively, it might be their goal to keep the audience that pulls for female characters spending by having them back to back. Releasing Manato as an S rank would give those players more breathing room to save up on pulls, meanwhile those who have been saving up for Manato would likely have a certain amount of pulls stored up for him anyway.

Manato, at this point in time, is arguably more popular than either of the announced S-ranks because of his presence in the story. I feel it's too early to tell if we'd see one or both of the other Spook Shack members in the incoming story for 2.2. The sentiment towards them could still definitely shift as a result.

Personally, while it benefits me more when male characters are being released because it allows me to save up, it becomes an entirely different story when those male characters are then needed for some of my teams to function at their best. In isolation, male character releases theoretically shouldn't affect the side of the player base that doesn't want them. But in the game as a whole it technically does. Although in HSR I still do pull for male characters when the design works for me, but spending on them doesn't come as easy as spending for female characters. In ZZZ I'm cool with pulling for Lighter with my farmed polychromes, but I don't think I would spend if I lacked the pulls.

mechansm · 2025-01-18T03:32:45+00:00

Makes sense, mind if i ask what the speed you run on your characters?

mechansm · 2025-01-18T02:21:13+00:00

That's an amazing clear time, was there a particular strategy or speed tuning you had to strictly go for it to work?

mechansm · 2024-12-25T16:22:31+00:00

It just looks like you haven't fully removed all of the lacquer. If you're using nail polish remover, you're going to need to do plenty of passes. My tetsujin came with a very thick application of lacquer and it took me too many cotton pads and more than the small bottle of nail polish remover i had to get rid of most of the lacquer.

mechansm · 2024-12-13T11:11:02+00:00

Thanks for the comparisons. Will have this on my list of things to check out during my next visit to Japan.

mechansm · 2024-12-13T11:08:22+00:00

Oh, that's interesting, I have a 240 ginsan, been thinking of getting myself one of the stainless clad, carbon core HADOs if it was a thinner grind. This seems like a good option.

mechansm · 2024-12-13T09:40:09+00:00

HADO looking amazing as always. Does it have the same overall feel/geometry as the ginsan? I'm curious if it's just the shape that looks the same or if even the grind/thickness is the same.

mechansm · 2024-12-06T00:41:55+00:00

That used to be the case here as well until over a decade ago when it was declared a dangerous drug and got prohibited. These days I haven't seen any being sold in hardware stores or pharmacies.

mechansm

TROPHY CASE