BK9 etching, help appreciated

Jens Schuetz

Jens Schuetz

Joined
Jun 24, 2013
Messages
4,162
Wow, my first BK came in the mail today.
Its awesomely sharp. I did the shaving test and pushed as hard as with other knives, big mistake. Its kind of embarrassing but with the hair went a bit of skin :rolleyes: Yep super sharp. Sharper from the factory than my Spydys, CRKT, SOGs, CS,... Weird, whats the secret? Is it more micro toothy?

Anyways, Ive been reading a lot on the possible modifications and there are a lot. I plan on doing a few.
One thing I wanted to start with was to deepen the engraved/laser etched letters before stripping the blade of its paint. The process is described here http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1107696-Electro-etching-my-new-BK-16-patina
No there is just one tiny problem. Unlike the BK-16 in the link The letters on my BK9 are only painted on and not engraved, therefore I can not etch them deeper because there is no metal shining through.
What is the solution? Scratching the paint from the letters and then etching? I doubt I can be that accurate by scratching. But if it's the only way what would you suggest for scratching. Maybe a tiny screwdriver? :eek:

Thanks in advance for your help.
:thumbup:
 
Gotta post up a pic, Jens. I was the one who did that thread. I'd have to see what you're talking about before I could comment, tho.
 
granitestateofmind said:
Gotta post up a pic, Jens. I was the one who did that thread. I'd have to see what you're talking about before I could comment, tho.
Click to expand...
Need to get me a macro lens but I think it still shows. The letters are just paint and have the same texture as the coating of the rest of the blade.


 
Damn chinese clones :p *kidding*

Hard to tell....
Give the etching a go, if it's paint there's no harm done to your knive anyway...
 
Hmm If its laser etched, shouldnt it be deeper than the coating and be shiny like the edge and smooth and not have the same texture like the black?
 
Jens Schuetz said:
Hmm If its laser etched, shouldnt it be deeper than the coating and be shiny like the edge and smooth and not have the same texture like the black?
Click to expand...
That doesn't look right to me, and yes, you should be able to see a depression in the coating and some steel where it has been etched. Do you mind telling where you got it from? I'm not an expert by a long shot, but still....it don't look right.
 
I got it from Amazon.
The letters look the same like here http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1083152-Arrived-my-new-BK7-and-BK9 and many other pictures I had looked up in the net. I doubt its a fake and if then its a good one with super sharp edge, proper Ka-Bar packaging and some advertising/warranty material inside.
Maybe its just a new way of a bit of cost optimization?
My handles are hollow inside. I heard some aren't?
 
AFAIK, all the grivory handles are hollow. Perhaps check with Ka-Bar in that forum - post the pics. My hunch is that it is a manufacturing error...but I don't know enough about the laser-etching process to say where or how it didn't get etched. I think your best place to start would be this: Tech-Talk-With-Toooj and see what he says. Good luck.
 
Thanks a lot for your help.
I think my eyes are just playing tricks on me.
Maybe the laser creates the texture as it burns through the paint? Where there is a thick particle in the paint it burns less into the underlying metal and where the coat is thin it burns deeper thus mimicking the texture of the black coat when burning through it.
The heat could also have made the metal look more gray than shiny making it look like grey paint.
Maybe the timing of the laser was little bit too short so that the letters aren't as deep and look plane with the black.

Why do I think all this, when it just looks like simple paint to my eye?
I used a needle and my ears. I hit a few letters with as little force as necessary to make a ding sound and then I hit the black part next to it and ...
.... no ding sound :) Means grey and black parts have different properties and most likely grey is not a paint but just metal grayed by the heat and given its texture by how the laser burned through the textured coating.
So yes it might be laser etched and not paint!

Even if its not deep at all, electro etching like granitestateofmind did in his thread should remedy that.
So in a few days (need some stripper and batteries etc.) we will know if my ears are better than my eyes in this case.

Sorry if this turned out to be a false alarm (not 100% sure yet), but maybe it will help some other Becker beginners in the future.
 
Jens Schuetz said:
Thanks a lot for your help.
I think my eyes are just playing tricks on me. Maybe the laser creates the texture as it burns through the paint? Where there is a thick particle in the paint it burns less into the underlying metal and where the coat is thin it burns deeper thus mimicking the texture of the black coat when burning through it. The heat could also have made the metal look more gray than shiny making it look like grey paint. Maybe the timing of the laser was little bit too short so that the letters aren't as deep and look plain with the black.
Why do I think all this, when it just looks like simple paint to my eye?
I used a needle and my ears. I hit a few letters with as little force as necessary to make a ding sound and then I hit the black part next to it and ...
.... no ding sound :) Means grey and black parts have different properties and most likely grey is not a paint but just metal grayed by the heat and given its texture by how the laser burned through the textured coating.
So yes it might be laser etched and not paint!
Even if its not deep at all, electro etching like granitestateofmind did in his thread should remedy that.
So in a few days (need some stripper and batteries etc.) we will know if my ears are better than my eyes in this case.

Sorry if this turned out to be a false alarm (not 100% sure yet), but maybe it will help some other Becker beginners in the future.
Click to expand...
I just looked at he pictures again, and it does not look like it's been etched down to metal to my eye....but I just thought of a quick and easy test, if you have any kind of ohmmeter with probes - just set it to "ohm" scale, touch one probe to the steel on the blade edge and one inside the lettering very lightly. If it doesn't read 0, it isn't etched - and the electro-etching won't work either....hopefully you can give that a try and prove conclusively if it is or isn't. Don't hesitate to pm or email me if you have any other questions about the electro-etching process. Good luck, Jens.
 
Thanks again,
I broke my last cheap multimeter ($4) Now I got a nice excuse to buy a new one :)
However I was very curious and couldn't wait. I cut the cable of a low voltage christmas light chain and put one cable end on the edge and the other on the letters. The lights lit up nicely! :thumbup: When at the edge and the black part they don't.
So I think the letters are metal.
Or could there still be some really thin layer of paint or even some conductive paint?
Thanks for offering your help on the etching process too. :encouragement:
 
It sure does look painted. Perhaps there's yet another process they use now. Not really sure.
 
The Warrior said:
It sure does look painted. Perhaps there's yet another process they use now. Not really sure.
Click to expand...
Sure looks painted to me, too. Next time you photograph, Jens, use a strong sidelight, should be able to see the "lands" between the coating and the letters. If you don't feel the edge with your fingernail, I'd still check with Toooj.
 
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Thanks again for all your advice!

More detective work:
I measured the resistance of the grey "paint" and its the same like on the edge 0.2 Ohm. Good. Its metal :-)
I stripped some black paint on the pommel to have a contact. Wherever the metal shows its clearly deeper than the black paint. Strange why it was not the case on the letters where their grey looked flush with the black coating?

Progress!
Similar to Granites description I electro etched the letters using a car battery and some salt water soaked q-tips. Now the letters went from completely flat to 0.5mm (1/50 inch) deep. :) More seems difficult because details of the letters are already starting to fade a bit.
Before I strip the remaining black coat I would like to turn the letters black. AC should do it according to what I read but I would be thankful regarding some pointers if possible. Voltage, timing, possible side effects... whatever come to mind as helpful since its my first time etching.

Thank you :)


Phone camera is bad and it looks better on the phone screen for some reason but I guess it shows how well it worked. :)


 
Jens Schuetz said:
Thanks again for all your advice!

More detective work:
I measured the resistance of the grey "paint" and its the same like on the edge 0.2 Ohm. Good. Its metal :-)
I stripped some black paint on the pommel to have a contact. Wherever the metal shows its clearly deeper than the black paint. Strange why it was not the case on the letters where their grey looked flush with the black coating?

Progress!
Similar to Granites description I electro etched the letters using a car battery and some salt water soaked q-tips. Now the letters went from completely flat to 0.5mm (1/50 inch) deep. :) More seems difficult because details of the letters are already starting to fade a bit.
Before I strip the remaining black coat I would like to turn the letters black. AC should do it according to what I read but I would be thankful regarding some pointers if possible. Voltage, timing, possible side effects... whatever come to mind as helpful since its my first time etching.

Thank you :)


Phone camera is bad and it looks better on the phone screen for some reason but I guess it shows how well it worked. :)


Click to expand...

Rock on, buddy, lookin' good! Don't need to go any deeper than that, for sure. Low voltage AC transformer - doorbell type or alarm system type, which I used because I have a hundred of the things, 9 VAC up to 24 VAC should be good. Same solution and process as what you did for the first etch; doesn't happen any faster or slower, but you don't need to do it as much. You're just turning it black is all. Make sure to scrub some baking soda in there with a toothbrush (an old one, not your regular user :wink:) mixed with a little water when you're done. I did the the cleaning process a couple of times because I wasn't sure what I was doing; you can do the same if you want to check your progress. If you've gotten this far, you've already figured it out, so....I'd say you got it nailed. Probably doesn't need saying, but.....please don't use line voltage, I suspect that might be real dangerous. One more thing - I plugged my AC transformer into a power strip with a switch that I could reach for ease of shutting things off and for safety as it also had a circuit protector built in. You might want to do the same.
Looking forward to seeing the end results!
 
If its just to blacken the letters you can also drop some pcb etchant and leave for like 5-10 minutes, it won't eat away too much metal and will blacken them up.
 
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