Acid Etching

M

mr.trooper

Joined
Dec 5, 2005
Messages
1,449
I will be doing some Etching on one of my blades. The only Acid I have to work with is Hydrocloric, and fairly high molarity at that.

My first question is, how much should I dillute the acid? I want the etch to be prety deep without taking all day and as I recall from Chemistry, a chunk of Iron droped into a tube of high molarity HCL disolves in a matter of a few seconds. :eek:

Im also looking to give the blade and antique "pitted" look. I was thinking I could use a spray bottle to coat the blade with little dropplets of HCL to achieve this look. Is this a good Idea, or Should I use a controlled rusting method?

Thanks for reading!
 
I'm no chem guy but I would shy away from hydrochlorich and steer into ferric chloride acid http://www.radioshack.com/product/i...uctId=2102868&origkw=etch&kw=etch&tab=support
If you do a search in the bladesmith question and answer forum
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=741
you will find quite a few suggestions on using this stuff on your blade.
Also for a pitted 'antiqued' sort of look you can try this , i have had good to varying results depending on the steel.
*****Do this in fresh air!!!***** sorry for the harshness but I aint having anyone collapsing from fumes on my watch :)
take a few q-tips , ready a glass of water/baking soda (use a dumb glass you dont care about) , apply your F-C onto your blade and let it soak in , rinse off and nuetralize with soda and repeat until you get your desired darken.
Then once more apply F-C and then dab a qtip with bleach onto that and let it sit , but watch it every so often , this should add some nice pitting to your blade , conversly you can apply F-C then soak in a glass of bleach for a while , same effect.
Steel wool lightly , apply oil and your good to go.


Also , some folks dilute F-C , some swear by it undiluted , I suggest you tinker and find out what suits you best , and I cannot , not say it again.
Please do this in fresh , moving air even if you have a respirator.
 
I was working on a DDR 3 Button lock kit, and I decided to etch the bolsters with some ferric. I got a 16 oz bottle from Radio Shack, diluted it 3:1 (three parts water, of course), let it soak and agitate for 20 seconds, neutralize with some sort of ammonia based product (I used a glass cleaner and it stopped the process) and wash. I think I ended up dropping them in again for 5-10 seconds to get it a little darker/more uniform.
 
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