I just try that again and it is that deep so I can catch with my nail .....I can t say anything about quality of that because I use saltwater and nail polish instead of real stencil ...
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Etch-o-matic vs personalizer plus
- Thread starter Justin Schmidt
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Let me dig up a pic but yeah you can catch your nail on it. And a few blades needed more tumbling after and after 36hrs of abrasive tumbling it was still there.
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- Feb 18, 2016
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I think the most important thing has been overlooked, Electrolyte. You can have the best stencil, etcher exc and with crappy fluid you won’t be happy. For a long time I resisted buying proper fluid. I had enough of fighting etches and call the pros. She talked to me for quite awhile and put togather a system for me. And I was absolutely blown away at the difference. I don’t DC etch anymore, I only use ac. With the proper fluid AC is great. I will have to look at which fluid I settled on but I will never go back to DC. Allways amazes me that people will spend tens of hours making a knife and risk messing it up in 1min with cobbled togather etching stuff. Give them a call, you won’t be sorry!
When I bought my stencils from IMG I got the box of electrolytes with it.
Damn I always thought DC made it dark and AC etched it.
I have used the Etch o matic for quite a few years now and it works well just make sure you buy decent stencils not the type through type they have.
Richard
Just to make things clear , I use cotton swab for pad and that make some difference . In my test I can get very deep / I would even not call it MARKING it is more like etch except finish is black / very fast , maybe after 15-20sec. ...15V AC on that small surface work faster then on hundreds of times larger area of real pad ...With real pad things would go much slower I suppose .
Cushing H.
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I have been thinking about how to apply a makers mark .. and have been thinking about a stamp - but was not aware of this etch option. Right now i have no idea what is meant by a stencil or carbon block Is there a “how to” thread or article someone can cite? I have no trouble with cobbling the thing together myself. Also, i am a ChemE with some electrochem background - might be able to shed some light on the ac vs dc question (might be more of a time thing - “mass depleted inhibitory boundary layers” tend to develop with dc processes”, but it is not really so simple...)
Knight Owl Forge
Bladesmith
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- Mar 14, 2017
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^ That's what I do and I believe most makers... Etch deep first with DC and then etch dark with AC afterwards.
Don t take me on word , but I think that if you change polarity on DC when you finish with etch you will get black .I think that I tried that too , but it's been a few years since then so I am not sure .I will try again tomorrow, it's a bit late now here .
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Problem I had going from dc to ac was a light ghosting around the etch. It easily cleand up with fine sand paper. But the finish on my blades where tumbled and I can not sand them after etching. With AC only I do not get any ghosting, Just a crisp etch. Also going with dc first then ac was not as crisp an etch, at least for me. But I was marking AEBL and D2
Cushing H.
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JT - was that ghosting within the boundaries of the stencil, or outside the boundaries of the stencil? Any worse (or the same) at corners (if you have them)?
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How many and how long to you apply the AC current?
Cushing H.
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Ok .. i think i have a guess what is going on (if i am being too chemist/nerdy let me know and i will stop). When you etch with dc (anode/positive connected to the blade) you are stripping metal away from the blade (hence the deep etch).. but leaving a relatively intact surface of metal ... hence it is not dark. When you reverse the polarity (negative connected to the blade) the reaction will try to deposit metal back on to the blade .. but will be a pretty random deposition process, leaving a rough surface that will appear darker. Ac is a mishmash of both happening basically at the same time which leads to th shallower but darker etch. My guess would be on the dc (blade connected to positive) for a longer time, the reverse the polarity for a shorter time for a deep but darker etch (would need to be tried to verify if correct)
ELECTROLYTE IMPORTANT: i agree with JT that electrolyte would make a difference. in order for the reverse polarity to work in redepositing metal on the surface you, well... need metal IN the electrolyte. Salt solution would deposit sodium, which is kind of funky to think of depositing onto the blade. If iron is a primary component of a blade, you need something with iron in the solution. Cheap, safe, available suggstion: iron sulfate. This is a dietary supplement in the vitamin area of any drug store. Buy a bottle, crush up some tablets, dissolve in water (distilled probably best) until no more will dissolve.
The liquid on top is your electrolyte containing iron that then will deposit on the blade as an unorganized dark surface with ac or reversed polarity. Has anyone tried or suggested this?
ELECTROLYTE IMPORTANT: i agree with JT that electrolyte would make a difference. in order for the reverse polarity to work in redepositing metal on the surface you, well... need metal IN the electrolyte. Salt solution would deposit sodium, which is kind of funky to think of depositing onto the blade. If iron is a primary component of a blade, you need something with iron in the solution. Cheap, safe, available suggstion: iron sulfate. This is a dietary supplement in the vitamin area of any drug store. Buy a bottle, crush up some tablets, dissolve in water (distilled probably best) until no more will dissolve.
The liquid on top is your electrolyte containing iron that then will deposit on the blade as an unorganized dark surface with ac or reversed polarity. Has anyone tried or suggested this?
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2006
- Messages
- 585
I use a personalizer plus and I use electrolytes that Electro Chem recommend. Every logo I mark is made using first the alternating current and then the continuous one. In this way the logo is first dug, then colored black, filling even the void it created previously. To remove the logo you must use abrasive belts!