I bought a Tamang knife from Himalayan Imports a couple of years ago. It had what they call a "villager fit and finish".
That means the blade is left in the "as forged" state, and not polished.
It had nice black iron oxide on the entire blade, except for where the bevel is ground.
I wanted the whole blade to be black, so I bought some Laurel Mountain (I think) browning solution from Brownell's.
I then, browned the entire bevel/edge and after browning it, poured boiling water over it until it was black enough to stain charcoal.
I like it much better this way.
Anyway, I read about that on the homegunsmith forum. Good info to know.
I blued the blade on one of my carbon steel Mora knives with Brownell's Oxpho-Blue.
It turned out well, too.
BTW, the reason I bought the browning solution was to re-brown my DGW Tennessee Mountain rifle.
I bought some Birchwood Casey Plum Brown and apparently got the new formula, which didn't work at all, for me.
Never did get around to browning that flintlock.
I need to.
Anyway, sending my howdah pistol and Piettas to Doug Turnbull for CCH sounds like a plan. I've seen his CCH and it looks fantastic.