I B Etch N

Raymond Richard

Raymond Richard

Joined
Jun 17, 2001
Messages
5,705
Didn't have a whole lot of ambition yesterday but did feel like playing so I did. I ran pretty much the same sequence on the etch with the 3 blades. 4 or 5 quick etches (less than a minute) in a 10% nitric acid etch and then 3 longer soaks maybe 5 minutes each in a 50% ferric cholride etch. The top blade was from some saw steel Wayne Goddard had given me, it was finished down to a 400 grit belt before it was etched. Did get a fair amount of pattern out of it but don't believe it to be shear steel. The middle and bottom one are both the shear steel. The bottom one was also finished with the 400 grit belt before the etch. The middle one was hand rubbed to 1000 grit before the etch. I guess I could have gotten the same results just using the FC but it most likly would have taken a couple hours but using the nitric acid really sped up the process. I'm thinking around a 1/2 hour to get what I got. The nitric acid would not bring out any of the pattern on the hardened area of the blades.
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Ray,NICE WORK! And,thanks for the info and great pictures. I am doing a canister weld damascus blade pretty soon(compliments of Mr. generous IG). When I get to the etch, I'm gonna try your method.
 
Neat! I hope this isn't off topic. Is this the process used to get the wavey look you see on the edge of some katanas? I hope that makes sense :) I tried to find a picture of what I'm refering too, but I didn't have any luck.
 
Jordan, In a way your right but I was mainly doing this to bring out the natural pattern in the steel. All three of these blades I did use clay before I hardend them. The middle blade is the results of figurring out how to do it, the top and bottom blade I just put the clay on without giving it much thought. On the middle blade I made a paper pattern of what I was wanting and then used it to make both sides of the blade the same useing a sharpy pen. You need both sides to be the same for the pattern to come out sharp, for the biggest part thats how the middle blade came out.....
 
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