Here is my first attempt at patina on my CS Trail Hawk. I forgot to take before pic's but basically paint stripper and scrap. I then made a bath of vinegar, hydrogen peroxide and salt. I warmed it up with the heat gun then dunk, remove and rewarm and repeat until desired effect. I finished it up with a coat of Briwax to help seal it in (one site recommended Penetrol which I didn't have). I sanded the handle and applied a coat of minwax.

The Bath


The results

interesting, what is the darker part up front, close to the edge??

i think it might be where it was heat treated, it has the same thing on the hammer portion.

Nice job!!

interesting looks great

That really turned out nice, just finished doing a knife blade, the guys over in the knife section recommended using yellow mustard to turn the blade dark. It came out almost black.

That looks really nice, might have to give that a try sometime.  Thanks for sharing.
-Jay

looks good John!

depending on who made the head,  but a good axe is forged by using a lower carbon content steel for the main body of the axe- more malleable- and less prone to breaking- then the working edge of high carbon steel is forge welded into the head.
there are a few different processes and ways to do this. but the end result is the same.
but if it is a high production model( like mine is!!) then it is exactly as john says- the head is all one type of high carbon steel, and the lines are just where the  working surfaces were heat treated.