How to blacken D-2?

My MadPoet hunter has a really nice black oxide on the blade flats where it was unfinished from the heat treating. Is there a way to quicken this blackening on my MP kit blades? I figure acid will do it, but are there any household items?
 
Cool! I tried it last night, but after ten minutes or so I didn't see any results. You'd think someone with a BA in chemistry would no better, but I am VERY impatient. Now, if only I had access to 12M H2SO4 still!
;-)
 
Cat piss will turn ANY steel black...your problem how to collect it!
wink.gif
 
Ferric Chloride will put a beautiful dark grey finish on D2 steel. If you don't leave it in the stuff more than a minute or 2 it also brings out the structure in in the D2 that looks like wootz.

If you can't get ferric chloride, use the strongest vineager ( 25% is best ) you can find and saturate it with salt. Warm the mixture with your knife in it and this will also really etch the surface. Your whole kitchen will really stink too. :-)

------------------
www.wilkins-knives.com


 
Well, the juice isn't doing anything. I don't want to treat the whole blade, either. Just a small area of the flat on the choil, so the dunking techniques metnioned here are pretty much not going to work for me. Are there commercial sources for ferric chloride? Unfortunately I don't have any lab contacts anymore...maybe I do...I'll have to find out....
 
Be sure and clean the blade thoroughly before etching (acetone, denatured alcohol, etc.). Ferric chloride can be found at Radio Shack (I think they call it etching solution for circuit boards) and is neutralized with ammonia. Use a Q-tip to put the ferric chloride in specific areas, masking off the part you don't want etched.

[This message has been edited by fenixforge (edited 20 May 1999).]

[This message has been edited by fenixforge (edited 20 May 1999).]
 
You're right! I'll have to try that out. I bought some a while back when I was making my own guitar effects pedals....should still have some left. I'll report how it works when I find out! Thanks much
 
Well, the ferric chloride worked so-so. It resulted in a matte-gray finish, but it isn't as dark as I had wanted it. Not too bad, though. I wonder if the other one looks better because it happened naturally while it was in the sheath?
 
chiro,
One reason the 'black' finish on the flats looks darker or better is because it was pretty much been aged and 'cooked' on, not once, but several times. The steel was heat treated once, on its way to become a wood planer blade, used, stored, and probably slowly oxidized, then it was heated again in the process of annealing it to soften the steel so it could be worked into a knife.....then again when it went through the heat treating and tempering process.
I like leaving the gray patina from the heat treating on the blade flats almost as much as leaving some of the patterning from the mill scale when using hot rolled and annealed bar stock. Each has a different look, and I think gives the blades a character of their own. I never thought of using ferric chloride to patina the blade bevels too.....

madpoet
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top