How to finish up after acid darkening a stainless blade?

G

GrizzlyBear

Joined
Dec 5, 2009
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I bought a jug of muriatic acid this morning and started using it to darken up a stainless blade. I've done several dips for 10-20 mins each, rinsing in baking soda/water then fresh water, drying and doing again. Afterwards, I had a really nice dark grey color to the blade.

So, I started thinking...I might like some patterns on the blade. I first tried streaking on the acid with a paint brush, but there wasn't enough in each swipe to do much good. So I took some yellow mustard and mixed in the muriatic acid. Then, I took the dowel I mixed with and dobbed on droplets and runs of the acid/mustard. My thinking, the mustard will make the acid sticky and hold it where I want it to color my shapes.

It worked perfectly!

Now, after the soda/water bath, and rinsing in fresh water and drying...the blade has a somewhat "dried out" look to it and also a "grabby" feel to it...(hard to explain, I hope those of you who have done this know what I'm talking about). It definitely looks better when wet.

Here is my question. What steps should be done after this point? I tried to lightly wipe the blade with a scotch brite pad and that immediately started shining up what I had darkened. So I had to redo the etch in that spot.

Or...am I done? Is the blade supposed to have this feel to it?
 
It also seems like the finish is susceptable to light scratching, showing the bright stainless beneath. Is this just the nature of the beast?
 
Would you mind putting up some pics? I'd love to see how it turned out. I'm just starting to experiment with finishes myself. I like to use really fine steel wool after I do my finishes. That usually doesn't take them off, but it will take off any external texture generally.
 
I read in another post that someone else uses very fine steel wool, so I tried that. It brightened up the etching some, but didn't take it all away and it brought back the smoothness of the steel! I'm very pleased! I have the blade coated with more mustard/acid at the moment, when it finished in a bit, Ill get pics and post them up.
 
crimsonfalcon- i posted pictures in my Refinishing Knives thread which should be towards the top of the page since it was bumped with pics.
 
Try using clear fingernail polish to keep areas from being etched and do a full dunk in acid.
Use Acetone to remove fingernail polish when your done.
Finest steel wool to take the bite off the blade should help also.
CW
 
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