How to etch a knife with scales on it?

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brian923

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Jul 20, 2015
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Hey guys, was wondering how you etch a full tang blade that has scales already installed on it? Blade is O1. I was going to use some ferric chloride, but I don't know if it will destroy the copper pins and liners and or the wood scales.

 
It will definitely eat at the copper if you leave it uncoated. I have also seen FC stain woods before. Are you trying to get patina or are you etching a hamon?
 
It will eat copper like a fat kid at McDonald's, the weird thing is that the ferric chloride is now contaminated with copper and will plate the copper on steel if you try and etch steel. I don't know if it's actually plating but the steel gets a copper wash. Ferric cloride is used to etch copper circuit boards, it loves copper.
 
One option is to etch only the blade. You can use nail polish, painted on, to mask off a clear stop line for the etch at the front of the handle, and paint it on the front end of the handle just far enough to be able to cleanly etch the whole blade. The tang, from the front of the handle on back, will stay bright.

Or, nail polish/lacquer can be painted onto the entire handle, for the etch process. It will then need to be sanded off after the etch. It will be difficult to leave the tang bare.

The best way is to temporarily pin the handle on, or use bolts and have hidden index pins, or leave the tang or the scales slightly proud, or attach the scales with screws- then you can shape the blade and handle together, remove the handle, etch the blade, and reinstall the handle.
 
I do as Salem says, I do a lot of hidden pins and thy fit so tight that I do all my finish handle work befor gluing it up. Some times it can be a bear getting the scales off with just tight fitting hidden pins. Etching can be done after glue up but it's tricky and requires masking off areas and lots of times qtips to get the tang area.
 
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