aging nickle silver

atakach

atakach

Joined
Jan 17, 2008
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I'm finishing up a jaw bone handled knife today and it's kinda got an old used finish to it, i went through a series of finishes on the blade to produce a nice aged Finish on it and want to do something to the guard to kinda age it. i haven tried anything yet but was thinking of maybe ferric with a battery hooked to it may or sand blast it then etch and then clean off the guard leaving the etch left in the pits made by sand blasting?? any of these work or any better ideas?
 
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I'm not sure if this would work, but given the high copper content of NS, maybe a wash like sculptors use to patina copper? Otherwise, I think media blasting until it is matte and let it naturally oxidize.... just a thought. Can't wait to see the knife!
 
hopefully you'll get a peek today, i gotta set of kitchen knives to sharpen for a guy, and a few other things to finnish up on then i should be able to post some pics.
 
You don't get much aging on NS ,after all it was developed [in pre stainless steel days] for corrosion resistance. The ingredients ,copper, zinc, nickel all form sulfides readily .You might try patina chemicals for copper and brass especially if sulfur based.
 
mete, makes sense . i should have made the guard from wrought iron or copper. not sure what im gonna do yet, but here is a couple pics without the guard in place.
 

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Leave it as it is, without the guard.
I like the looks of the knife as it is.
 
Birchwood Casey's Super Blue (not their perma Blue) works well for patinating GS - mix up to 50/50 with Muriatic (aka hydrochloric) acid for a more reddish/brown patina.......
 
They also have some antiqueing solutions for copper alloys in their Industrial Finishes section .
 
finally got'er finished up.

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Now if you want it fancy just put gold fillings in the teeth !!
 
ha ha

well i was going to do a poured pewter guard that would have came down over a couple teeth to lock it in, but gold would work as well.
 
Looks good Andrew! What kind of jaw bone is that? I'veen some made with bear jaw, but that doesn't look like bear....
 
mtredmon

to be totally honest with you, i was told buy the guy that gave it to me that it was a young bear, that a friend of his had shot a while back. but truthfully i didn't think it resembles a bear jaw either, not even a young one. i have a coyote jaw knife of my own, that kinda resembles this jawbone, so thats what I'm going with. if anyone knows for sure, than I'll stand corrected, either way jaw bone is jaw bone, and this'en feels pretty darn nice in the hand.
 
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