30 second Sulfamic acid etch

[Diamond J Knives]

Ok, so being inspired by some awesome WIP’s lately, I thought I’d show a mini WIP of our etch process. I’ll do an entire WIP someday...

CAUTION! This is hot acid, be careful! Do not breath the fumes, work in a well ventilated area. This is a very fast etch, no you don't have time to go grab a beer...

After heat treat, we hand sand our knives to 800 grit before etch.

Then we wipe the knives down with acetone to degrease or the etch wont be even...

 

[Diamond J Knives]

Mixing acid...
We use a large Pyrex glass, boiling water and sulfamic acid cleaner(can be found at most hardware stores in the tile section) normally 1 ½ tablespoons are used with the amount of water shown(about 2 1/2 cups of water) mix the acid crystals until they are dissolved, (doesn’t take very long with hot water)

dip the knife in the acid for 15 seconds, check it to ensure nice even etch, back in for another 15 seconds or so. sometimes up to a minute longer if we want a “deeper” etch.

 

[Diamond J Knives]

Then Quickly neutralize the acid with Windex, use plenty.(dont forget the spine or inside the pin holes)

we let them air dry as we etch the rest of the batch...

Then we scrub with nevr-dull, and dont be stingy with this stuff.(takes a little elbow grease)

 

[Diamond J Knives]

Then to the buffer with white rouge. use a very light touch..

Occasionally we take things to a little nicer finish with flitz...

This step is finished and these are ready for handles..(all four knives etched and finished through these steps in just under an hour.)

 

[Daniel Fairly Knives]

Thanks for the excellent tutorial! It is nice to see exactly what you are doing, great job. The etch looks great, I have wanted to try it and now I feel better about trying it.

 

[amcardon]

Thanks! That was very informative. Not sure if I'm just blind and missed it, but what steel are you working with here?

 

[jonnymac44]

Looking good Diamond!:thumbup: Thanks for the walkthrough. You know I love stuff like this

 

[Mitchell Knives]

Great tutorial!

I was just thinking about how to achieve this look a few days ago.

I'll have to try it out soon.

 

[Diamond J Knives]

amcardon, you didn't miss it, I forgot to say it is 1095.

Johnny, seeing your recent wip inspired me

Johnathan and Daniel, I figured some of you would be wondering how we achieved this look, We just happened upon it and through trial and error found something that works well for us.

 

[Tai Goo]

Cool!

 

[Greg Obach]

sweet tutorial

can i ask.. where'd you find the sulfamic acid


thanks again.. the blades came out very nice

 

[Diamond J Knives]

sweet tutorial

can i ask.. where'd you find the sulfamic acid


thanks again.. the blades came out very nice

Thanks Greg, I get mine from the local hardware store like Home Depot, lowes, etc. look in the tile/stone aisle.

We used to use this stuff to clean stonework and certain tile in our old day job.. The label reads sulfamic acid cleaner.

 

[John L]

Are the wooden blocks you use to rub the abrasives.....leather covered on both sides? Any hints on the abrasive work on them is appreciated.

 

[Diamond J Knives]

Are the wooden blocks you use to rub the abrasives.....leather covered on both sides? Any hints on the abrasive work on them is appreciated.

Only our flitz block is leather covered on both sides, one side has radiused corners, the other side has sharp corners.
As far as sanding the knives, here is our process,
60, 220 on the grinder, hand sand starting at 180, then 220, 320
Alternating the scratch pattern. Then heat treat, back to hand sanding at 320, 500, then 800. We use wet dry sand paper with windex as a cutting fluid, and our sanding blocks are old worn out files that got the teeth ground off and flattened.
Hope that helps...

 

[wnease]

thanks for the tutorial...

 

[Tai Goo]

I picked some up the other day while I was at Home Depot and used it to “pickle” the scale off a forged blade. I just used a mild solution cold and it worked really well. Seems like a good alternative for jewelers pickling compound ( sodium bisulfate, another sulfuric acid substitute) too.

 

[Diamond J Knives]

Thanks for the info Tai! We hadn't thought of that use for it, but makes sense that it would work well. Great idea. Thanks for sharing.