Heat anodized starbenza clip

Bladenoobie1

Bladenoobie1

Joined
Jul 20, 2012
Messages
1,261
Previously I had my clip with a dark bronze-grey finish. I wanted something to contrast the dark grey scales of my starbenza (oxi-treatment) and decided to heat anodize the clip! It turned out well and I think it looks very nice. If anyone is curious, I also re-posted an old picture of my starbenza following the oxi treatment where I had acheived a dark bronze color. Overtime that color does wear away mostly due to the finger oil darkening the bronze finish.

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Anyhow I hope you enjoy the pics.

- BN
 
Looks nicely done, but I'm just not a fan of flame anodizing. Just seems too random/willy nilly for my taste. I do like the bronze though.
 
Its pretty easy to control the colors. A nice rich bronze is attained by heating it right before it starts glowing and a deep blue/purple is attained by getting the metal a nice glowing orange. You can usually see the color form if you take the heat away momentarily. Intially I had it blue, bronze, blue, bronze, blue but later I decided to blend the colors together. You can still see the distinctions in the colors though.
 
Bladenoobie1 said:
Its pretty easy to control the colors. A nice rich bronze is attained by heating it right before it starts glowing and a deep blue/purple is attained by getting the metal a nice glowing orange. You can usually see the color form if you take the heat away momentarily. Intially I had it blue, bronze, blue, bronze, blue but later I decided to blend the colors together. You can still see the distinctions in the colors though.
Click to expand...



I want mine bronze!!!! View attachment 454265
How do I do it? Or an you?
 
You need to do an oxi-clean treatment for a fairly long time. Get some of the powder oxi-clean (the stuff for your clothes) and place it in enough hot water to submerge your starbenza scales. I don't know the ratio of oxi-clean to water. I just take a scoop and dump it in lol. There are plenty of tutorials and threads instructing on how much to use(not that it matters too much. Prior to soaking your scales in the oxi-clean solution be sure to clean your scales throughly with soap and water. After I do that I tend to dunk and wipe the scales in rubbing alcohol to try to remove any residual oil. After cleaning the scales put them in the oxi-clean solution and let them soak. I like to change the water and add new oxi-clean every 2 hours or so. I soaked my scales for a total of 5-6 hours to achieve the bronze finish. The dark bronze look doesn't really last though and your finger oils turn the color into a dark grey.

If you want a really rich or deep bronze color that will stay I'd recommend electro-anodizing. You can send your knife to people like maprik on this forum or if you're on a budget make your own electro anodizer with some aligator clips + cables along with some 9.6 v batteries. Here's a video I found explaining how to set something like that up: (you should be able to attain bronze with just one 9.6 v battery)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOV5A22t4oY
 
Bladenoobie1 said:
You need to do an oxi-clean treatment for a fairly long time. Get some of the powder oxi-clean (the stuff for your clothes) and place it in enough hot water to submerge your starbenza scales. I don't know the ratio of oxi-clean to water. I just take a scoop and dump it in lol. There are plenty of tutorials and threads instructing on how much to use(not that it matters too much. Prior to soaking your scales in the oxi-clean solution be sure to clean your scales throughly with soap and water. After I do that I tend to dunk and wipe the scales in rubbing alcohol to try to remove any residual oil. After cleaning the scales put them in the oxi-clean solution and let them soak. I like to change the water and add new oxi-clean every 2 hours or so. I soaked my scales for a total of 5-6 hours to achieve the bronze finish. The dark bronze look doesn't really last though and your finger oils turn the color into a dark grey.

If you want a really rich or deep bronze color that will stay I'd recommend electro-anodizing. You can send your knife to people like maprik on this forum or if you're on a budget make your own electro anodizer with some aligator clips + cables along with some 9.6 v batteries. Here's a video I found explaining how to set something like that up: (you should be able to attain bronze with just one 9.6 v battery)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOV5A22t4oY
Click to expand...


Thanks!! Love it!!
 
Rubicon_Joey said:
Looks nicely done, but I'm just not a fan of flame anodizing. Just seems too random/willy nilly for my taste. I do like the bronze though.
Click to expand...

I agree as it can be a bit random and will show any anomalies in the Ti that chemical anodising tends not to. That said with bit of practice and good surface prep you can get pretty good results using heat. The oxide layer forms quickly so you need to know when to stop to get the colours you want, espeacially on smaller pieces that obviously heat up quickly. Also any oil on the surface after it's been done totally kills the colour so you need to keep it clean. :)
 
Ken Livingston said:
Interested in replicating your clip, can you get into what you did for surface prep ?
Click to expand...
It's pretty simple. Just wash it thoroughly with soap to get rid of any oil and wipe it with some rubbing alcohol if you'd like to remove any residual oil. Hold the clip with a pair of pliers and use a butane lighter to heat the clip to the desired color.
 
Well torch or lighter it doesn't matter. I just used a butane lighter because that's what I had. And being that the clip is small a large torch may make it hard to attain alternating colors if that's what you want.
 
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