FC etching on S35VN - curious about weird spots

[zagornik]

Hello all,

I've been playing around with FC etching and decided to do my cormorant that has s35vn steel. Following the blade HQ youtube video, I have practiced on 8Cr13MoV steel and it seemed to go alright but when I did this steel I ended up getting two weird spots in the same spot on both sides of the blade. Any ideas what happened?

 

[bmo419]

I experienced the same kind of thing on my first attempt in etching. In my case there were a few splotches like that. Even though I took care to carefully degrease and wore gloves when handling it, there was likely some oil or residue that I didn't quite fully remove is my guess.