Electro-etching my new BK-16, patina

SurvivalEDC said:
GSOM, that is the best looking BK16 I have seen yet. Great job. I will be attempting something similar once my BK16 is in hand. A PM may come your way some day in the near future when I am ready for the attempt. Thank you so much for the inspiration!
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Thank you for the compliment. Please do, or emai or visitor message, I'm not sure if Registered Users can send PM's. e: bailey15stones@gmail.com
Tdhurl1103 said:
Just Beautiful Mike.
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sabk3 said:
Whoa granite that turned out awesome, even if you're not stripping the coating the deeper etching looks great!
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Thanks to you both. Most of the inspiration came from this very forum. Now I need to put some scale on there with a little more *bling*.
 
Newbie on the site. Just received a BK2 here in the UK and researching the etching process to make that logo deeper. Could you say how long you were dipping the que-tip onto the blade to acheive that depth of etching? Do you need to protect the surrounding black coating prior to the etching. When you refer to using a door-bell transformer to blacken the etch would this be the same as using a battery powered process after using the mains battery charger?

Also, do you think you may get a good result by just resting the positive terminal onto the exposed sharp edge rather than stripping the blade as you did.
 
GB2014 said:
Newbie on the site. Just received a BK2 here in the UK and researching the etching process to make that logo deeper. Could you say how long you were dipping the que-tip onto the blade to acheive that depth of etching? Couldn't say, but it doesn't go so fast that you don't have a chance to see what you're doing and how deep you're making it. All you're really trying to do is get the lasered logo a little deeper...literally 100ths of an inch.
Do you need to protect the surrounding black coating prior to the etching? No. That coating is the resist for the etching, and since you'll be removing it after you're done....
When you refer to using a door-bell transformer to blacken the etch would this be the same as using a battery powered process after using the mains battery charger?No. DC (Direct Current) deepens the etch, but it just eats away the steel. If you want to darken what you've just done, you need to use a (low voltage) AC (Alternating Current). House current is AC, but WAY too many amperes for what we're doing here. A doorbell transformer (or an alarm system transformer) are both good (and much safer) ways of applying AC to the etch.

Also, do you think you may get a good result by just resting the positive terminal onto the exposed sharp edge rather than stripping the blade as you did?As long as that 'gator clip is making contact with bare steel, you're good to go. But I personally would want it clipped on so it's making really good contact. You could still use the edge, but since the whole idea (at least for me) is to etch and darken before stripping, I just went ahead and got a start on the stripping. If you're not going to strip your new BK2 (congrats on that, BTW, it's a fine first Becker) then IMO it's not worth etching it in the first place.
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Hope that answers your questions. Welcome to the forum!
 
Thanks for the answers to my questions. I was thinking of doing the etching as I thought may be if I use the knife without doing the etch that it may be too late as it may wear down and remove the laser etch logo. Then its gone forever.

I was thinking of simply etching over the logo then filling in the logo with contrasting paint again so that it was highlighted against the black coating, so actually retaining the black coating for as long as possible or until it looks too scuffed. That way once the wear and general use of the knife removes the original coating, I could still if I wanted to remove the remaining black coating in the future knowing that the logo will have survived.

One other point. How does the etching keep to the laser etch area and not eat away at the black coating area as the original laser etch just looks like it is a surface logo on top of the black coating.
 
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GB2014 said:
Thanks for the answers to my questions. I was thinking of doing the etching as I thought may be if I use the knife without doing the etch that it may be too late as it may wear down and remove the laser etch logo. Then its gone forever.

I was thinking of simply etching over the logo then filling in the logo with contrasting paint again so that it was highlighted against the black coating, so actually retaining the black coating for as long as possible or until it looks too scuffed. That way once the wear and general use of the knife removes the original coating, I could still if I wanted to remove the remaining black coating in the future knowing that the logo will have survived.

One other point. How does the etching keep to the laser etch area and not eat away at the black coating area as the original laser etch just looks like it is a surface logo on top of the black coating.
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For the same reason you can keep acids (etchants) in plastic - it won't react. Put that stuff on steel though....and watch what happens! The coating acts as a "resist"; i.e. it resists interacting with the etchant (sodium chloride solution + electricity) but the steel does not. AC basically patinas instantly, so it turns the steel dark without the need for paint or coloring. If you're curious how it works, just get together what you need and find some cheap second hand cutlery to play around with. It's pretty fun.
 
Arkanian said:
So you just put the salt water over the entire laser etch area?
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Kinda....you dip a swab in saltwater and then clip the ground of a DC electrical source to it (+ to bare steel) so the electricity flows through the salt water and removes steel and deposits it in the swab....
Here's the Wikipedia entry:
Electroetching is a metal etching process [1] that involves the use of a solution of an electrolyte, an anode and a cathode. The metal piece to be etched is connected to the positive pole of a source of direct electric current. A piece of the same metal is connected to the negative pole of the direct current source and is called the cathode.[2] In order to reduce unwanted electro-chemical effects, the anode and the cathode should be of the same metal. Similarly the cation of the electrolyte should be of the same metal as well. When the current source is turned on, the metal of the anode is dissolved and converted into the same cation as in the electrolyte and at the same time an equal amount of the cation in the solution is converted into metal and deposited on the cathode. Depending on the voltage used and the concentration of the electrolyte, other, more complex electrochemical effects can take place at the anode and the cathode but the solution at the anode and deposition at the cathode are the main effects.
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The swab acts as the cathode and absorbs the ionized steel, the saltwater just ensures good conductivity and pathway for the dissolved steel. Unfortunately I didn't get pics of the process in action; only the setup and end result. I'm going to set up an all-in-one etcher for myself in the next few days; expect another tutorial on the build and the process. I gotta etch my 12 and I have a few other projects I've been thinking about, so....
 
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