Acid etch finish

I use plain white vinegar to etch with. Be sure the blade is very clean, acetone works really well. I heat the vinegar in the microwave to just a few bubbles and then put the blade in it. Cold vinegar will work just as well, it just takes longer. You can take the blade out and check the amount of etch. The hot vinegar usually gets where I want to be in about 30 minutes on a hot day. Cold vinegar may take several hours. When it's etched to your spec's, rinse in water and neutrilize with Windex or similar product. I use OOOO steel wool and soap to get the residue off. A light coat of oil will protect it after that.
Rick
 
If you're talking about the finish along the spine of that knife I believe it is not an etch alone but is the "rough" finish from the forge - in other words that section of the blade was never ground completely smooth.

To get a deeper, more aggressive etch you can use muriatic acid or bleach.
 
this is from a few chlorox soaks.
rightss.jpg


try dabbing on thick layers of lotion and soaking in chlorox. Wipe clean and repeat as needed. Use wd40 and 0000 steel whool to clean up...then etch in ferric.
 
Wild Rose...

Guess I should have ben more specific. What I was looking at is the tang by where the thonghole is. The kinda pitted/rusted then cleaned up look...for lack of a better way to explain it. Something about that primitive, unrefined look really appeals to me.

Blgoode

Really like that finish. Looks almost like damascus. Did you mean lotion as in hand lotion and such?

Thanks all. I'm going to do a lot of messing around with these ideas. What's really nice thing is, all the stuff to do etching is easy to get.
 
Is that O-1, Brian? Pretty wild stuff going on.

cgdavid....that area around the tang is as Chuck said....forged, not ground. You can then soak 'em in vinegar to get the scale off, but that leaves it silvery. Might be soaked and re-etched in weak ferric chloride or vinegar or might be native as-forged. Maybe J. will see this and explain.
 
I use a paste cold bluing and chlorox but I think that all the cold bluing does is create a "mask" for the deep etch pattern look.....not sure but I do know that you have lotion and bleech at home so try it :) Scrap steel first!!
 
J. would know for sure...but my guess is that the tang was cleaned in vinegar after forging to remove the scale. I really like that look.


Chuck is the master of the bleach-assisted "aged" look that sometimes accompanies "as-forged" blades like these. :thumbup:


On the subject of vinegar-bath.....I have an interesting piece - have a look:

Ulu2.jpg



This is an "as-forged" piece I did as a gift. The two-tone effect is where the blade was quenched. I did not etch it, just used vinegar to clean off the scale. Clearly, hardened steel reacts differently to the vinegar, vs. the unquenched part. The steel is 5160, interestingly enough...
 
yeah fitz - 0-1 :) Fun to watch the pattern develope :)
 
Kurt, the finish you mentioned is straight out of the forge. After the blade is forged to shape & HT'd I'll grind it then soak it in white vinegar for anywhere from 1-3 days using 0000 steel wool, as Rick mentioned, to loosen everything up. It's actually a very easy method though slow. I just leave the vinegar at room (shop) temperature. If you don't want the blade grey, do the vinegar bath before grinding. Then you can use a wire brush to knock off scale and speed up the process a bit. Hope this helps.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top